The Howling Wind
by JMenace
Summary: The Hidden Villages are reaching their breaking point. Alliances are fracturing, age old resentments are festering, and not even the shadow of a fourth Great Shinobi War can overtake the ever present threat of the Bijuu. The Elemental Nations need a hero, now more than ever; someone to rise above those who have risen above and pull them from the flames. Instead, they get me. (AU)
1. Chapter 1

"Uzumaki Naruto!" In the Academy of the Village Hidden in the Leaves a young boy with blond hair and bright blue eyes jumped in surprise, clutching a small stack of papers tightly in his fists. He'd been waiting in line for hours it seemed like, and he'd zoned out a while ago. He hadn't even noticed when the girl in front of him went in. Quickly scurrying forward into the examination room, he passed by the girl wiping furiously at her eyes and sniffling.

The room inside was typical Academy fare, as far as Naruto was concerned. A row of benches and desks sloping down to an open area at the bottom that the instructor had set up his desk at, a chalkboard, a few boxes of currently unused school supplies, and not much else. Naruto quickly bounded down the stairs two at a time, coming to a halt right in front of the instructor's desk and thrusting his papers in the man's face. The instructor, an aged chunin with a bandana wrapped around his head and full chunin getup, took them with an amused grin.

Naruto bounced eagerly on the balls of his feet while the man looked them over, more than ready to ace this test and take his first step to becoming a real life ninja. After an eternity of waiting the chunin instructor nodded sharply and shifted the paperwork to the side and stood up, walking around his desk to the middle of the open floor, gesturing for Naruto to follow.

"Now, this test is rather simple," he explained. "All you need to do is perform the Ram seal and channel your chakra. I'll take care of the rest," he winked. Naruto eagerly nodded, and the instructor carefully showed him how to form the seal, poking and prodding at his hands until he was satisfied. Stepping back, he crossed his arms.

"Now close your eyes and relax. Make sure you keep your hands in that position, and turn your focus inward. When your stomach starts tingling, I want you to tell me, okay?" The chunin asked. Naruto nodded firmly, eyes clenched tightly shut, and focused.

At first he didn't feel anything. Just the aching in his feet from standing in line so long and the queasy feeling in his stomach from eating too much ramen and the wind drifting in through the window. After a minute he started to panic, just a bit. He felt a bead of sweat burn a trail down his whiskered cheek, felt the queasy feeling in his stomach intensify, felt the instructor's gaze burning a hole through his head. And then he felt it.

"I-I've got it," he whispered, relief flooding through him. It wasn't exactly like the instructor had said. It didn't tingle in his stomach, instead making him feel light and sorta giddy, like that one time that masked ninja carried him across the rooftops to the Hokage Tower. A hand suddenly came to rest on his right shoulder, and he heard the instructor speak, voice distant and echoing.

"Focus on that feeling, Naruto. Focus on it, and pull."

"Yes, sensei."

Naruto grit his teeth, imagining himself grasping the weightless feeling tightly in his hands. His body tensed, nose scrunching up in concentration, and he pulled.

He felt the light sensation spread throughout his entire body in a rush of a motion, heard it roar in his ears as it left his body. The instructor's hand left his shoulder, and a heavy crash managed to force its way past the noise in Naruto's ears. He opened his eyes, startled, and gasped.

The room had been wrecked. All of the papers that had been on the chunin's desk were now scattered about the room, some still drifting around lazily, and the contents of the boxes in the corner, several books and dulled kunai, had likewise been dumped on the floor. And the instructor himself, to Naruto's horror, had been thrown backwards into his desk, which now sported a long vertical crack splitting it down the middle.

Rushing over to the dazed man's side, Naruto hesitantly shook his shoulder. "Sensei? Sensei, are you alright?" He stammered. The instructor nodded shortly, gently shaking off Naruto's hand and pushing himself to his feet, surveying the damage the room had sustained. Then he looked down at Naruto, an unreadable expression on his face.

"Would you mind having a seat in the room across the hall until I'm done with the other children, Naruto?" He asked politely.

"Yeah, sure," Naruto replied nervously. Turning around, he bounded up the steps and out the door, past the curious gaze of a girl with hair and eyes a shade lighter than his own, dressed in purple and white. Slipping into the empty room set up with a big round table surrounded by a bunch of comfortable looking chairs and a large refrigerator, Naruto flopped down into the nearest seat for all of five seconds before he was up and pacing.

The clock on the wall said it had only been twenty minutes, but to Naruto it felt like it had been hours by the time the door finally opened. The chunin instructor motioned for Naruto to follow him, and he hurriedly complied.

"We're going to take a trip to the Hokage Tower," The instructor explained while the two of them walked down the hall towards the exit. "Hokage-sama would like to see your chakra himself."

"Did I do something wrong?" Naruto asked quietly. The instructor snorted, reaching down and ruffling his spiky blond hair.

"Of course not. You did something different," he said. Naruto stewed on that until they'd made it out of the Academy and the instructor crouched down, offering him his back. Naruto clambered on, and the instructor reached around with one arm to secure him to his back, and with the other formed a hand seal.

"_Shunshin no jutsu._"

Naruto cried out in surprise as the man suddenly shot forward, so fast that Naruto couldn't make out anything but blurred colors. The ride ended as soon as it had begun, and the instructor lowered Naruto carefully to the ground, keeping a firm hand on his shoulder so he didn't fall, and directed him into the towering red tower that the Hokage and his most trusted operated in. Quickly finding his senses, Naruto turned awed eyes up at the man.

"What was that, sensei?" He asked. The instructor chuckled, letting go of him and heading for the stairs.

"That was the Body Flicker. It's one of many D-rank jutsu you'll be learning if you graduate and become a genin."

"If, he says," Naruto muttered, hurrying to keep up with the man's long stride. They traveled the rest of the way up the tower in silence, and anxiety began bubbling anew in the pit of Naruto's stomach. The man had said he hadn't done anything wrong, just different, but that wasn't necessarily a good thing...

They finally reached the top floor of the tower and made their way past the waiting room and the Hokage's secretary, who merely nodded them through. The instructor knocked sharply thrice on the door, and the Hokage's familiar voice drifted through the sturdy wood, calling them in.  
The Hokage's office was just as Naruto remembered it. Adorned with several shelves filled to the brim with scrolls, three straight backed chairs in front of the Hokage's desk, and the Hokage's desk itself, an ornate oak piece that stretched nearly wall to wall covered in scrolls and stack of paperwork. The old man himself sat back in his seat, staring contemplatively at Naruto, Hokage hat and robes securely on his person.

The two masked shinobi standing on either side of his desk were new. Naruto peered curiously at their unusual uniforms. Instead of the pure black clothing he was used to seeing, theirs had patches of muted green mixed in. And their masks were different too. They were even stranger than the usual fare- One was decorated sorta like a cat, with big pointy ears and strange markings around its eyes and mouth. The other was completely blank, a plain white oval that somehow managed to creep Naruto out even more than the freaky cat.

"Ah, Naruto, it's good to see you again" The old man greeted warmly. Naruto quickly turned away from the two strange looking shinobi and offered him a grin.

"Hey old man!"

"By your leave, sir," The instructor spoke up behind him. The Sandaime nodded genialy.

"Of course, Izumo. Thank you for escorting Naruto here safely." The chunin bowed, turning to leave. Naruto's eyes widened and he quickly lunged to catch the man's sleeve.

"Ah, I just wanted to say sorry again," he mumbled in answer to the man's curious look. "I didn't mean to, uh, throw you into your desk and stuff..." He trailed off lamely, looking down at his sandals. A moment later a hand was ruffling his hair, and he looked up to see Izumo smirking at him.

"No problem kiddo," he said. Then he turned and walk out the door, closing it softly behind him.

"So Naruto," The old man said. "Izumo told me your attempt at channeling chakra yielded some unusual results. Could you try channeling some more for us?"

"Are you sure?" Naruto asked doubtfully. Wrecking the Academy classroom had been bad enough, but what would happen to him if he ruined the _Hokage's_ office?

The Sandaime just nodded, smilingly reassuringly, and Naruto found himself forming the Ram seal once again and focusing on the feeling of giddy weightlessness in his gut. This time he knew what he was looking for, and he also knew how to coax it out, so when the feeling sped out of his body this time the roar in his ears was replaced with the sound of ruffled clothing and scrolls. He cracked one eye open and found the room no worse for wear, to his relief.

The Sandaime hummed thoughtfully. "Mujina, Bakeneko, if you'd please." He said, and the two masked shinobi strode over to Naruto, crouching down and prodding him with glowing green fingers. Naruto took a startled step backwards, but they simply moved forward with him, continuing to poke at different spots on his body.

"Don't worry," The old man called. "They're just checking your tenketsu." Well, Naruto didn't know what tenketsu were, but if the old man said they were alright he supposed he'd trust them. For now.

After a few uncomfortable minutes the shinobi both abruptly stood up and retreated back to the Hokage's desk. The old man snapped his fingers and suddenly another shinobi melted out of one corner of the room, reaching over Naruto and opening the door.

"Go," the man commanded, voice muffled by the mask on his face, and Naruto hurried out. The shinobi walk right by him, past the secretary into the waiting room, where he took up a stance by the doorway. Naruto followed carefully behind.

"So... which one are you?" Naruto blurted into the silence. The shinobi's mask turned to face Naruto directly, but he didn't otherwise answer. Naruto rolled his eyes and pointed at the mask. "You know, which animal?"

For a while it seemed like the shinobi wouldn't say anything, but finally, "Weasel." Naruto scrunched his nose up.

"That sucks," he said distastefully. "When I graduate I'm gonna be something really cool, like a lion, or a shark!" Weasel cocked his head further.

"Only Anbu are issued shinobi masks." Naruto stared at him in confusion.

"What's an Anbu?"

Weasel sighed.

* * *

By the time Weasel finally lead Naruto back into the old man's office the sun had begun to set and the queasy fullness in his stomach was long gone. Walking in, Naruto noticed that the two weird Anbu, as he now knew them to be, had left, leaving the Sandaime by himself. The Hokage was currently facing away from them, his chair swivelled to look out at the village through the office's large windows. Wispy trails of smoke floated up above the chair, and the smell of tobacco hung in the air.

"Have a seat, Naruto," The old man said. Sitting down again was just about the last thing Naruto wanted to do, but the old man sounded serious, and when old man Hokage got serious you listened. Period. So he grabbed a seat and waited.

"Thank you, Weasel. That will be all." Naruto twisted in his seat, a goodbye on his lips, but found the shinobi had already disappeared. Huh.

"Naruto." He whipped around to see the Sandaime staring at him with an unreadable expression. "What does being a shinobi mean to you?" Naruto blinked.

"Uh, what?"

"What does being a shinobi mean to you?" The Sandaime patiently repeated. "Why do you wish to be one? Why would you rather be a shinobi than a blacksmith or a cook?"

"Because ninja are awesome!" Naruto said enthusiastically. "They can breathe fire like dragons and break trees with their fists and teleport like Izumo-sensei! They get to save princesses and beat up bad guys and everyone notices and respects them. Especially the Hokage! And-"

"Is that why you want to be a shinobi, Naruto?" Sarutobi interrupted him softly. "To be noticed and respected?" Naruto sputtered for a moment, eventually shrugging with forced nonchalance under the weight of the man's gaze.

"I guess that's one reason..." He agreed casually. The Sandaime raised an eyebrow.

"Do you want to know why I became a shinobi, Naruto?" Naruto nodded eagerly, of course. "I became a shinobi to protect Konoha." The blond child's eyebrows furrowed.

"Uh, don't they all do that?"

"To some extent, yes," Sarutobi agreed. "But some desire fame first and foremost. Or money, or power," The old man peered down at him. "Some desire respect." Naruto averted his eyes, feeling guilty for reasons he couldn't even understand.

"There's nothing wrong with desiring such things," The Hokage assured him, allowing Naruto to relax. "But I worry that they won't provide the incentive you need."

"Why?" Naruto asked curiously. Sarutobi drummed his fingers pensively on the desk, a thoughtful expression on his face. Then he rose and beckoned for Naruto to follow, turning and cracking open the window behind his desk.

"Hop on, Naruto." And for the second time that day Naruto scrambled up onto a piggyback ride with a shinobi. This time, however, they didn't travel with a super cool jutsu.

Instead, the Hokage stepped up onto the windowsill, crouched, and leaped across Konoha towards the Hokage Mountain. Naruto shrieked in surprise as they soared above Konoha's nighttime inhabitants, cringing when the Yondaime's sculpted head came into view. Yet, amazingly, the Hokage landed light as a feather on one of the sculpture's spiky locks. He crouched again, allowing Naruto to slide off his back and collapse into a sitting position.

Once Naruto had regained his wits (for the second time that day), he turned to chew out the old man only to find him staring ahead.

"Look, Naruto." Grudgingly, Naruto turned towards Konoha. And his breath froze in his throat.

He'd never seen it from a bird's eye view, he dimly realized. It had always been a street view for him, or a roof view depending on who he was with. But he'd never seen it all laid out in front of him before. It was unlike anything he'd ever seen before.

"They're beautiful, aren't they?" Naruto jumped.

"They?"

"The trees," The Hokage said, and when Naruto looked again he realized that while he'd been staring at the thousands of little people darting around below he'd missed the towering trees covering nearly half the village. He felt awe as he traced a simply enormous one that curled up and over the Academy, covering it in a protective canopy of leaves.

"Wow," he breathed. The Sandaime chuckled softly beside him.

"Indeed."

The two stayed that way for a long while, marvelling at the village they called home until the sun had disappeared completely and the moon had begun to rise. Finally, Naruto reluctantly broke away from his inspection of a group of Anbu bouncing around the village via rooftop, craning his neck to look at the Sandaime, who was still standing there with a peaceful expression on his face.

"Hey old man?" He asked quietly. The Sandaime hummed, which he took as a sign to go on. "Why'd you bring us here?"

"I wanted you to see why I became a shinobi." Understanding bloomed on the boy's face, and he turned to look at Konoha again, this time in a different light.

"To protect... all of this?" The Sandaime's lips curled into a small smile at the baffled expression on his face.

"All of it," he said simply.

"How?"

"I had help," Sarutobi admitted. "Look at those trees, look at how they shield Konoha, hiding her from those that might wish her harm." He ordered, and Naruto obliged. "The Shodaime Hokage created them." He nodded seriously when the boy whipped around to gape at him.

"Look at those rivers, at that waterfall," he pointed towards the area of the village where the training grounds resided. "Those were made by the Nidaime Hokage, and have kept water in every villager's home for decades."

"What did you do, old man?" Naruto asked wonderingly. Sarutobi's smile widened.

"I kept it all safe through three great wars."

"Three?" Naruto said incredulously.

"I'm certainly old enough to have lived through them all, am I not?" The Sandaime responded in amusement. Naruto considered that for a moment, eventually nodding in acceptance.

"So what does that have to do with my, uh..." He trailed off, face scrunched up in frustration.

"Incentive?" The Sandaime smirked.

"Yeah, that! What's it have to do with my incentive to be a ninja?" Sarutobi frowned, returning his attention to Konoha.

"You have a chakra defect, Naruto," he revealed, and Naruto could have sworn his heart stopped.

"A what?" He asked, horrified.

"Your chakra is different from the average shinobi. Instead of the regular brand used to perform Genjutsu and similar arts, it's elemental in nature."

"What do you mean?" Sarutobi sighed at the question.

"Channeling elemental chakra is a skill that most shinobi spend years attempting to accomplish in order to perform special Ninjutsu. It is a complicated process that involves morphing one's chakra to closely resemble their element of choice. Yours has skipped that stage entirely."

"Isn't that a good thing?" Sarutobi grimaced at the desperation in the small boy's voice.

"In some regards, yes," he agreed. "But with only wind natured chakra at your disposal, you will be unable to perform even the simplest Genjutsu and Ninjutsu not directly related to the element. Fuinjutsu will also likely be out of your reach."

Naruto exhaled shakily, attempting to process the man's words. He'd never heard of Fuinjutsu, and Genjutsu only vaguely rang a bell, but he couldn't use Ninjutsu? How was he supposed to become Hokage if he couldn't use Ninjutsu? How was he even supposed to become a ninja?

"What can I do?" His head dipped, bangs fell over his eyes, and his tone was bleak. Sarutobi frowned.

"You can stop sulking first of all," he said, voice hard. Naruto lifted his head quickly, staring up at Sarutobi, shocked. "Just because you're at a disadvantage doesn't mean that you can't still achieve your dream. Don't ever think otherwise," he said sternly. Naruto nodded slowly.

"But how can I-"

"There are other arts for you to learn. Taijutsu, the shinobi art of hand to hand combat, even more essential a skill than Ninjutsu, requires no chakra given the right style. Likewise, Kenjutsu, the shinobi art of weaponry, relies only on your determination to exceed. Stealth, a skill that every shinobi worth their title possesses, doesn't require any chakra either." The Sandaime crossed his arms across his chest. "Do you see where I'm going with this, Naruto?"

"I think so," Naruto said slowly. "As long as I work really hard, I can still be a ninja?" The Sandaime's hard expression softened, and he nodded.

"Exactly. Now hop on, these old bones can't take the cold." Naruto giggled and nodded, quickly wiping at his eyes and jumping on the old man's back once again for the return trip. This time he managed to hold himself to an exhilarated whoop as they soared through the sky towards the Hokage's office.

When they were safely indoors Sarutobi allowed Naruto to drop and collapsed back into his chair with a relieved sigh. Naruto, meanwhile, bounced around in front of the desk, too giddy with excitement and something else he couldn't identify to sit down. Sarutobi coughed firmly, expression serious once more, and Naruto forced himself to calm down and listen.

"To answer your question, Naruto, I brought you to the Hokage Mountain to show you what the right goals can accomplish. The Shodaime, the Nidaime, and myself all strove to protect Konoha above all else. We accepted nothing less than a prosperous village, and so that's what we got.

"If you truly wish to become a shinobi, to overcome your handicap and excel despite it, a simple desire for respect won't be enough."

Naruto fidgeted, conflicted, but the Sandaime didn't give him a chance to speak.

"I'm going to make you a deal, Naruto. The same deal I made with a boy a year older than you with a similar problem, Rock Lee." Sarutobi stated. "I'll enroll you in the Academy if that is still your wish, and I'll make sure the instructor's don't penalize you for not being able to perform the required Ninjutsu, Genjutsu, and Fuinjutsu.

"And if when the day comes for you to graduate you are at the top of your class in Taijutsu, Kenjutsu, and Stealth, and you can present me with a desire to be one worthy of a future Hokage, you will be made a shinobi." The Sandaime leaned forward, smiling conspiratorially. "I'll even give you a special scroll from my library as a reward for your hard work."

"Really!?" Naruto cried, leaning forward and nearly headbutting the Hokage in his excitement, who merely leaned back and laughed.

"Of course, of course," he assured. "So, what do you say?"

"I say you've got a deal," Naruto reached out and grabbed the old man's hand off the table in a hearty handshake.

"I'm glad," Sarutobi said sincerely. "Your first class will be a week from now, and I expect you to make a very good first impression with your instructor."

"You got it old man!"

"Now then, if all of that is settled, I think it's about time we got you home," he said. "I'm sure Mrs. Wakayama is worried sick about your absence." Naruto rolled his eyes at the mention of his crazy caretaker but followed the Hokage out of his office nonetheless.

They traveled at a leisurely stroll, an appreciated change from the day's previous means of transport. Naruto looked around at everything with new eyes, the amazing view from the Hokage Mountain still burning in his mind. They were just reaching the district that housed Naruto's orphanage when a thought occurred to the young boy.

"Hey old man, what did the Yondaime do for Konoha?" He asked. Sarutobi glanced at him thoughtfully for a moment.

"He did more than any of his predecessors," he answered quietly. "He saved Konoha from annihilation seven years ago, sacrificing his life to defeat a demon bent on her destruction."

"Woah..." Naruto twisted his head to stare at the Yondaime's monument with something like hero worship shining in his eyes. And in doing so he missed the look the Sandaime gave him, one of deep sadness and regret.

* * *

Naruto was just about bouncing in his seat at the Academy, the agonizing week of waiting finally past. While other kids his age around him chatted about this or that, he daydreamed about all of the super cool Taijutsu moves he'd be learning, and all the awesome Kenjutsu stuff as well! Stealth didn't sound quite as cool, but he'd find a way to make it fun, or his name wasn't Uzumaki Naruto. Excitement and determination both flowed through him like chakra, leaving him feeling giddy and light.

Or maybe that was his chakra. Pausing, Naruto glanced around and sure enough saw hair ruffling and papers rustling from his unconscious channeling of chakra. Closing his eyes quickly, he focused on pushing the feel of his chakra back into his body, relaxing only when the last little bit had been contained. He'd have to be careful about that, he realized.

Fortunately, any mood killing concerns with his strange chakra were quickly shoved into the farthest recess of his mind when the door opened below and a man wearing a chunin vest sporting a spiky hairdo walked in. Immediately the conversations in the room died down, the other kids turning their attention just as expectantly on the man as Naruto.

"Hello students!" He greeted cheerfully. Walking over to the solitary desk in the room he dropped a stack of papers he'd been carrying, and then reached down and grabbed an armful of textbooks from a box next to the desk. He quickly set about climbing the stairs and handing each student a textbook. Naruto practically snatched his own copy out of the man's hand, earning himself an amused grin for his troubles. He immediately cracked open the book and started flipping through the pages.

Once all of the books had been handed out, the man returned to his desk and grabbed a sheet of paper from the pile. He began reading names off of the apparent attendance list with practised ease. When it came to be Naruto's turn he found he was too absorbed in the book to do his awesome introduction he'd planned, instead simply waving his hand in the air. He wasn't actually reading it, per se, more looking through the pictures provided, but man were they some interesting pictures.

"Now then, my name is Umino Iruka, and I'm going to be your instructor for the next five years." The instructor introduced himself, receiving a chorus of hellos from the class. "First of all, those textbooks are all yours to keep, and will cost extra to replace. So take good care of them. You'll be getting a new one every year, but for now that's all you've got." He said firmly. "We've got a lot of material to cover before your graduation, so today is going to be a brief overview on everything we'll be doing. I'll also be answering any questions you may have, and after lunch we'll take a trip outside to the training grounds you'll be using to practise your various shinobi arts."

Naruto perked up at that, but a quick glance at the clock assured him that lunch wasn't for a long time still, and as Iruka-sensei launched into the various different subjects they'd be covering Naruto found himself turning back to his book. His eyes traced over the various pictures of handseals and Taijutsu stances and the like, occasionally skimming the text below the pictures if they were particularly interesting.

Time passed like this, Iruka-sensei babbling on about something or the other and a few students here and there asking questions, when Naruto alighted on a picture that instantly had him raising his hand.

"Yes Naruto?" Iruka asked. Naruto held up his book and eagerly pointed to the picture that had caught his attention, a small illustration of two Anbu dressed in muted green and black with strange, demonic looking masks.

"Who are these guys?" Iruka raised an eyebrow.

"Can I get a page number?"

"Oh, yeah. Two sixty-six," Naruto supplied, feeling his cheeks heat up as a few snickers reached his ears.

Iruka walked back to his desk and picked up a textbook of his own, flipping through the pages. "You mean the Anbu?" He asked, surprised. Naruto nodded.

"Yeah, they look different than the regular kind." Iruka nodded in understanding.

"Ah, I see. These particular Anbu belong to a special division that exists solely to combat Bijuu and similar demonic threats called the Yokai Corps." He explained. "They're a very selective bunch. I don't even know what is required to become one." On the other side of the room a girl with pink hair quickly raised her hand.

"What's a Bijuu, Iruka-sensei?" She asked curiously. Several students nodded along with her question, the word demonic having easily sparked their interest. Iruka crossed his arms, humming thoughtfully.

"Well, I was planning on saving that particular subject until after lunch," he said slowly. "But I suppose I could do that now and go over the rest of the year's subjects later, if you'd all like." Unanimous agreement was his answer. "Alright then. Why don't you all turn to page two sixty-seven."

Naruto turned the page once, and was greeted by the sight of an enormous ugly creature hurling what looked like sand at a bunch of tiny ninja.

"Bijuu are going to be a very important topic throughout this year and every year following, so for now I'll just give you the basics. The Bijuu are nine beings that are so powerful many refer to them as natural disasters. Each is the size of a small village, and one by itself has been proven to be destructive enough to wipe out miles of land at a time with their attacks.

"Each Bijuu belongs to an element, of which they have complete and total control over. The Ichibi, as you can see, deals in sand. Part of the reason they're such big problems is that very control over their element. It makes a shinobi's job a lot more difficult when the very ground beneath their feet is working against them. Bijuu also have the uncanny ability to flee into their element when threatened, so capturing them is impossible." Iruka's expression softened, seeing the rapidly growing horror on the children's faces. "You all don't have anything to worry about, though," he assured. "The Yokai Corps are very good at their job."

The pink haired girl raised her hand again, if a bit hesitantly. "Yes Sakura?" Iruka asked.

"How do the Yokai Corps combat the Bijuu, exactly?" There was a slight tremor in the girl's voice, but she tried valiantly to hide it. Iruka smiled reassuringly at her.

"A very good question." He complimented. "As I said before, the Yokai Corps are a very secretive bunch, but from what I understand they operate primarily through an extremely impressive level of teamwork. Their main purpose is to keep Bijuu away from Konoha, and they do this very well by using group ninjutsu and mass containment techniques to scare the Bijuu away. Anymore questions?"

"My mom told me the Kyuubi attacked Konoha seven years ago and the Yondaime had to sacrifice himself to kill it," A boy in front of Naruto with messy brown hair and glasses said matter-of-factly. "Why didn't the Yokai Corps scare it away?" Iruka sighed sadly, leaning back on his desk.

"It was not because of a lack of effort," he said after a few moments. "Something that you all need to understand is that the power of the Bijuu varies greatly. A theory has been made that the number of tails they possess is an indicator of this, but there's little evidence to that fact other than the Kyuubi, which has the greatest amount of tails and the greatest amount of power.

"The Yokai Corps can only do so much, and in the end the Kyuubi was just too strong for them to contain or scare off. Their Ninjutsu, their traps, everything. It was all useless against what some call the Lord of the Bijuu." Iruka explained solemnly. "The Yondaime was forced to sacrifice himself because the Kyuubi would have wiped out Konoha in its entirety otherwise." He shook his head.

"We'll be going over that and other things related to Bijuu in due time, but I think for now that should suffice. How does an early lunch sound?" There were some scattered nods and muttered acceptances, but for the most part the children were all still trying to take in this new, scary information. Naruto, meanwhile, quickly flipped through the pages in his textbook while the other kids gathered up their lunches and headed for the door, ignoring the various different Bijuu on display until he reached the ninth and final Bijuu.

An entire page had been taken up by the illustration. That of an enormous, snarling fox with hateful crimson eyes and nine lashing tails crouched in the middle of what looked like a hurricane. Trees the size of toothpicks whipped around the raging beast, and the very clouds above it were being dragged down from the sky into what looked like a tornado. Naruto's eyes flickered down to the caption.

_Kyuubi no Kitsune. Bijuu of Wind._


	2. Chapter 2

_Uzumaki Naruto's shinobi goals_, the scroll reads, unfurled on the stone of the Yondaime's head. That's all it reads. My brush taps against one of the Yondaime's locks in a steady beat. I haven't even bothered dipping it in ink yet. I scowl at the mostly blank scroll, at the barrier it represents between myself and a Konoha headband.

It's been five years since I started the Academy, and five years since the deal I made with the old man. Five years of staring at a blank scroll hoping for an epiphany.

"This is so stupid," I hiss. My chakra control slips and a low, moaning wind kicks up, ruffling my hair and sending my scroll rolling merrily right off the side of the Hokage Mountain. I groan, dropping my head in my hands.

I'm screwed. I'm completely and utterly screwed. Tomorrow is graduation day and I still don't have anything to tell the Sandaime.

"Why can't I just write 'Protect Konoha' and be done with it?" I mumble. It would be so easy. All it would take is a new scroll and some ink and a convincing smile. Boom, shinobi. Easy as one, two, three.

So why can't I?

I peek through my fingers at Konoha, at the legacy of all the Hokage. It would be easy to lie to the old man, to tell him I want to protect Konoha and all of its inhabitants. Easy to cheat my way out of our deal. He'd nod and smile proudly and hand me my headband himself. I'd rise through the ranks, and one day he'd give me his hat, too. I'd be Konoha's newest protector, the one shinobi that everyone respected.

And it would all be a lie.

I sigh, leaning back and uncrossing my legs. I can just make out Konoha's business district from here, the one area of the village still active this late at night- or early in the morning, as it were. The bars in particular are still alive with lights and drunken patrons, and my mind easily supplies a slew of shouting and laughter to go along with the imagery. My eyes track a chunin, walking slowly towards one bar in particular. I watch as he slips in through the wooden doors, shoulders slumped.

And I watch as not a minute later he stumbles right back out, a small, portly man following right along and shoving the exhausted shinobi until he stumbles and collapses in the dirt. He stomps back into the bar, leaving the chunin to struggle to his feet and shuffle away. My teeth grind.

That fat asshole doesn't deserve my life. He doesn't deserve old man Hokage's life. None of them do. They don't deserve a single drop of my blood, a single-

"Naruto."

"Gah!" I whip around, on my feet, one hand already clenched tightly around a shuriken from my weapons pouch.

And I see none other than Uchiha Sasuke, my greatest and most unwanted rival, standing at the top of the steps that encircle the Hokage Mountain.

"What are you doing here, Uchiha?" I demand. The scowl that appears on his face gives me a lot more satisfaction than it probably should. There isn't a lot that gets under his skin every time.

"Don't call me that," he snaps.

"Seriously though, why are you here?" I ask. He rolls his eyes and walks forward, sitting down beside me.

"I couldn't sleep," he admits. "I'm too..."

"Nervous?" I smirk.

"Excited," he smoothly counters.

"So you figured you'd come bother me instead?" Sasuke shrugs, staring down at Konoha.

"What are the ink and brush for?" He asks. My eyes flicker down to the brush still held in my right hand, inside the ring of the shuriken, idly spinning it.

"I'm practising my kanji," I tell him casually.

"Where's your scroll, then?"

"Rolled over the edge," I answer truthfully.

"Hn."

"Yeah, go hn yourself," I mutter, plucking the shuriken off my brush and shoving it back in my pouch. I crack open the ink blot and dip the brush in, shifting so as to face one particularly spiky lock of the Yondaime's stone hair. It's no scroll, but it'll do. I don't have anything in particular to write, but I've seen enough of Konoha for one night- er, morning.

So I draw seals. First a basic storage seal, the first seal Iruka-sensei ever showed us. Then a seal to mute scents. A heating seal. An artificial lighting seal. A chakra absorbing seal. I'm just beginning the first brush strokes for a certain spiraling seal when Sasuke is suddenly leaning over me, a strange look on his face.

He reaches out and touches a hand to my storage seal, lighting it up blue with chakra. He moves down the line, lighting each of the seals up except for the chakra absorbing seal, which glows a malevolent red as it sucks his chakra up. He leans back, a nonplussed look on his face.

"Do I pass?" I ask dryly.

"How do you know all those seals?"

"I pay attention in class," I deadpan. Sasuke shakes his head and jabs a finger at the chakra absorbing seal.

"That was never covered in the Academy." He gestures at the beginnings of my last seal. "And none of the seals Iruka-sensei showed us had spirals in them either." He cocks his head. "Besides, you can't even use seals. Why go through the trouble of learning them?"

God, he's such a prick.

"Well, _Uchiha_," I begin, drawing the name out slowly, much to my rival's ire. "As you just proved, I can still lay down all the groundwork even if I can't directly activate them myself. And in case you didn't notice, seals can do pretty much anything. Maybe I'm looking for a seal that can fix my chakra."

The real reason for my rabid research of Fuuinjutsu burns from its place on my stomach. Sasuke scoffs, but turns back to Konoha nonetheless. I roll my eyes, drop my brush into my pocket, and shove the used ink blot into the still glowing storage seal on the Yondaime's hair. I stand up and stretch, earning myself several immensely satisfying pops and cracks.

"Time to turn in, I think. I'll see you tomorrow, Sasuke," I say, shooting him a mocking salute and heading for the stairs.

"Why were you really here?" Sasuke asks. I freeze. "You wouldn't come up here for something as simple as practising kanji."

I turn to face him, features carefully neutral. "How would you know?"

He rolls his eyes. "I know you, idiot."

"Not well enough," I retort. Turning on my heel, I continue for the stairs.

"Is it the deal?" Damn. I deflate, the air rushing out of me in an enormous sigh.

"Yeah."

"I don't see what there is to worry about. Just tell the Sandaime you want to be the Godaime Hokage someday and be done with it," he offers. I lean back against the face of the Hokage Mountain, crossing my arms.

"That won't be enough and you know it. I can't just do this halfway. Maybe he'd accept something like that, but it wouldn't be right. My goal as a shinobi has to mean something. Something important. I can't accept anything less!" I explain in frustration. Sasuke turns back to Konoha, a tense silence falling over the two of us. I'm considering just calling it a day and leaving when his voice drifts over his shoulder.

"You know why I want to be a shinobi?" I blink at the question.

"Uh, to surpass your brother, right?" It's not entirely a guess. Sasuke has said something similar several times before, after, or even during our daily spars. Even so, I can just barely make out his shaking head in the darkness of the early morning.

"Close." He cranes his neck, staring at me with hard eyes. "My goal as a shinobi is to separate myself from Uchiha Itachi, from Uchiha Fugaku, and from the Uchiha clan as a whole. My goal is to become a shinobi all my own.

"That goal wouldn't mean much of anything to the Sandaime, but it means something to me. That's all that matters, in the end." He says quietly. He leans back, resting his head on his linked hands. "Goodnight, Naruto."

I nod slowly, for once accepting a clear dismissal without a retort, and make my way down the steps.

I have a lot to think about.

* * *

"-Ruto, wake up."

I roll over, cracking an eye open and peeking blearily at the alarm clock on my nightstand. The blocky red numbers read half past seven. Like hell. My eye closes.

"Naruto."

"Get outta my apartment," I mumble. A firm hand claps my ear, snapping my head to the side. I open my eyes and fix my intruder with a dangerous look.

The black haired, black eyed intruder stares right back, unfazed. He holds out a steaming cup of ramen.

"Tomatoes are under the sink," I grunt, sitting up and snatching the ramen from his hands and gulping it down in one go. I toss the woefully empty cup amongst its brethren in the trash can beside my bed and scrub at the gunk in my eyes.

"You hid them there last time." Sasuke's tone is carefully blank, but I've dealt with him long enough to detect the subtle annoyance hidden therein. I throw the covers off me and stretch, smirking.

"Yup." I head for the bathroom, grabbing a towel from off the floor along the way. A quick shower and a bit of dental upkeep later I walk out, throw on my baggy orange pants and black konoha-emblazoned t-shirt, and leave for the kitchen.

Sasuke's there sitting at the table, dressed in the same plain white shorts and high-collared blue t-shirt as yesterday, Konoha headband practically shining on his head, plowing through my produce like a man possessed. I grab the pot of pre-prepared ramen off the stove and grab myself a bowl and some chopsticks.

"So what is it this time?" I ask, leaning against the counter and twirling up some noodles.

Sasuke swallows, hitting me with his clan's patented smirk. "Felt like stopping by."

One of these days, Uchiha. One of these days.

"You're pushing it." I shovel some ramen in my mouth, absently grabbing my weapons pouch from off the top of the fridge and dumping its contents on the counter beside me.

Ten shuriken, five kunai, and about fifteen senbon. I'll have to stop by Kaji's soon. Taking one last gulp of broth, I place the bowl in the sink and pack up my gear. Nabbing my sandals from the living room along with my apartment keys, I head for the door.

"Let's go. I don't trust you alone with my groceries." Sasuke slinks out of the kitchen, wiping his hands on his shirt. "Might as well get this done sooner rather than later," I mumble.

Sasuke doesn't even wait for me to lock the door before he disappears in aBody Flicker, leaving me to make the walk myself. What a guy.

I make a quick stop along the way, buying some sweet rolls from a vendor. I've gone through two of the three by the time the Academy finally comes into view in all its stony glory. I toss my final roll to the chunin keeping guard at the gates, prompting him to crack them open for me despite the early hour. I head in, idly wondering what Sasuke bribed him with.

Or maybe he just snuck by. Wouldn't surprise me.

The Academy hallways are as familiar to me as my apartment at this point, more so even, and I navigate them with practised ease. I bypass Iruka-sensei's classroom entirely in favor of the bulletin board kept next to the instructors' office, where Sasuke just so happens to be waiting for me, a smug look on his face.

"I beat you."

I'm not quite sure if the cracking sound comes from my heart or my dreams.

"_What._" I shove past him and search frantically through the various fliers. Finally I alight on the seven documents that had been haunting my dreams for the past month. Academy Graduate Class Rankings.

I bypass the Ninjutsu sheet entirely, instead focusing on the stealth sheet.

First in class: Uzumaki Naruto. Second in class: Uchiha Sasuke.

Taijutsu. First in class: Uzumaki Naruto. Second in class: Uchiha Sasuke.

A lead weight settles in my stomach. Somehow, I'm not surprised that Kenjutsu was what tripped me up in the end. I can barely hit the bullseye consistently and Sasuke has been flaunting those fancy deflection tricks since third year. I scan up the Kenjutsu sheet, morbidly curious as to how close I came.

Second in class: Uchiha Sasuke. First in class: Uzumaki Naruto.

… Wait.

Behind me, Sasuke snorts. "I was talking about the Rookie of the Year spot. You came in second."

"Well of course you beat me overall," I say incredulously. I gesture wildly at the three sheets labeled Ninjutsu, Genjutsu, and Fuuinjutsu. "I can't even do three of the six arts we were graded on! I was never in the running in the first place." I slump against the wall, sighing shakily. "Don't scare me like that."

"Want a hug?"

"I'll cut you."

Sasuke beckons. "Come on, let's go find out who our third teammate is." I raise an eyebrow.

"What makes you so sure they'll put us on the same team? Why not split up the top two and make the teams more balanced?" I ask, pushing off the wall and following after my kinda sorta rival-friend.

"We have the best teamwork out of any other pairing in our class. Even the InoShikaCho group can't touch us during team drills. The Hokage would have to be an idiot not to put us together." Sasuke explains blithely.

"So who do you think our third teammate is going to be, then?" I ask, half sarcastic and half curious. Sasuke shrugs.

"Probably a kunoichi of some sort. Maybe that Hyuuga girl."

We're the first to arrive in the classroom, to be expected considering the god awful hour I was woken up at, and Sasuke takes his customary seat by the window while I rummage through Iruka-sensei's desk. Finally, I yank free a worn blue textbook with a triumphant cry. Hopping up the tables, I collapse onto the bench beside Sasuke, cracking the book open.

"Why do you always do that?" I look up from my page flipping, startled.

"Huh?"

Sasuke waves a hand at the book. "Every day before class for the last two months. You grab the third year textbook from Iruka's desk and read it until class starts, sometimes after if the material is dull enough. Why not just read it on your own time?" My eyes flicker down to said book and the large illustration of a wispy purple cat I'd just turned to.

"I lost my own copy a while ago, and this edition has the most info on the Bijuu and the Yokai Corps and stuff." I shrug. "It's interesting."

Sasuke hums, turning towards the window. Rolling my eyes, I turn back to the chapter I'd flipped to on the Nibi, Bijuu of Spirit.

The rest of our classmates start filing in not long after, and soon enough everyone is here but Iruka-sensei. I do my best to read through the chaos, flicking back to the start of the chapter for another read through. There's something about this particular entry that keeps eating at me, something important. My stomach burns.

_The Nibi no Nekomata is the most mysterious of the nine Bijuu, even more so than the Gobi, whose paranoia is legendary. It is so because of its element- or what is assumed to be its element. Spirits, while not fitting the traditional term, work well enough in the series of patterns the Bijuu seem to follow. It is not known how the Nibi's control over spirits works, which makes it potentially even more dangerous than a Bijuu such as the Hachibi._

There are almost no firsthand sightings of the Nibi in action because of this obscure, nearly always fatal power. What we have been able to glean from this, however, is that the Nibi possesses the ability to literally rip the life out of a person if it makes physical contact, no matter how brief. It is said that it can also reanimate the bodies of the dead with spirits of its choice, turning a once great shinobi into little more than a snarling animal in the blink of an eye.

Many have speculated over possible connections between the Nibi and the Shinigami, but it is not clear...

"Good morning class!" Iruka-sensei calls, striding through the door at the ground level with a few papers clutched in his hands, as per usual. I discretely close my- his textbook and slip it under the desk, to be returned later, as he shuffles some papers on his desk. Then he looks up, right at me, and gestures for me to come over. Well crap.

I hop down the steps and approach the desk, smiling brightly.

"What's up, Iruka-sensei?"

"The Hokage wants to see you, Naruto," Iruka says quietly. My innocent smile vanishes. "Don't worry, I'll grab my book after class. Good luck." He reaches out and clasps my shoulder. I nod slowly.

As I'm leaving I can hear the change in his tone, hear the pride leaking through.

"Well, this is it! As of this day you're all Konoha shinobi, and every single one of you has earned it-"

I shut the door forcefully behind me, exhaling slowly. I set off at a brisk walk, surveying everything around me carefully, imprinting it into my memory. This is probably going to be the last time I walk these halls for a long, long time.

One way or another.

* * *

"The Hokage will see you." The vanilla Anbu pushes the door open and steps aside. It behind me with a quiet, ominous click as I walk in. The old man is there behind his desk, as always, Hokage robes and hat donned and pipe within arm's reach. Except now his expression is flat, serious. The old man I know and love doesn't exist right now.

Alright Uzumaki, go time.

"Old man," I say with a respectful nod.

Wait. Damn. That didn't sound like Hokage-sama at all.

"Naruto," he replies with a nod of his own. Alright, that's enough screw ups for one life-altering meeting. Time to shut up.

"Have you seen your Academy results yet?" He asks.

"Yes, sir." Better.

The Sandaime quirks an eyebrow but continues nonetheless. "So you know that you've passed the Academy with first place marks in all of your relevant shinobi arts, just as you promised you would. Very impressive, I must say," he compliments. I grin, just a little. "However, there is still one more thing I require of you before I can declare you a shinobi of Konoha."

He steeples his fingers, Hokage hat casting eerie shadows over his features. "Do you have an answer for me, Naruto?" I slowly nod. "Let's hear it then."

I rock back on the balls of my feet, close my eyes, and focus on the flow of my chakra. Instantly the giddy, weightless feeling pools in my stomach. It calms the nerves that have been eating at me for months, if only for a moment. I open my eyes.

"My goal as a shinobi," I begin. "Is to become Hokage." The Sandaime's eyes narrow, but I soldier on, Sasuke's words echoing in my head.

"I want to become strong. Stronger than you, stronger than the Yondaime, stronger than anybody! I want to show the world that even a defective orphan can be a Kage.

"And, and, I want to learn what you see in Konoha. I want to learn what it is about Konoha that inspired the Hokage to do what they did. I want to make it my own, and to become stronger because of it. I want to understand!"

"How do you intend to do this?" He asks softly. My hands clench into fists.

"I... don't know," I finally admit. The words burn like a malformed katon jutsu in my throat, leaving behind an ugly taste in my mouth. "But I will soon, I swear!" I promise, fighting to keep the desperation out of my voice.

"Do you truly believe you can do these things?" He asks, not unkindly. "Not just any shinobi can become a Kage, after all."

"I do," I hastily assure him. "I know I'm not strong enough now. I don't know enough about my chakra yet or about the shinobi arts or any of that stuff, but I can learn. I know I can. I'll work harder, I'll put more time in at the training grounds, I'll-"

"I'm going to hold you to that, Naruto," The Sandaime interrupts, reaching behind his desk and pulling out a Konoha headband and a scroll the size of my forearm. I don't even dare breath. "I believe this is yours," he says. He offers me the headband with crinkled eyes.

"Just like that?"

"Were you expecting more?" He asks in amusement. I shrug uncomfortably.

"I... guess so." Before the words are even out of my mouth I want to take them back. I am literally being offered a Konoha headband and I'm standing here questioning it? I really must be as stupid as Sasuke keeps saying.

The Sandaime taps a finger on his desk, a thoughtful expression on his face. "Have a seat, Naruto. I think it's time I told you a story about my students." I blink in surprise, but quickly sit down nonetheless. I've heard the stories of the famous Sannin before- or infamous depending on which you were referring to. Everyone has. But hearing it from their sensei himself would be another matter entirely.

"The day of their graduation, after they'd passed my test, I presented my Team 7 with an offer. An offer of knowledge. I offered to teach them of Konoha's history, of the details of its founding, its victories and its defeats, all of the things that the Academy didn't have time to cover in those days. I offered to teach them of the softer shinobi arts, of politics and music and much, much more. I offered them everything I knew." The Sandaime leans back in his chair, staring at a point above my head.

"Orochimaru was the Rookie of the Year, and a perfect example of what a shinobi should be. Quiet, cunning, and capable of picking up anything taught to him almost unbelievably quickly. Anything related to Ninjutsu, that is." A sad smile tugs at the Sandaime's mouth. "He decided before I'd finished my sentence that it would be a waste of his time.

"Tsunade was much more polite about it. A studious girl, to be sure, with a truly ridiculous amount of control over her chakra. She had a fair share of appreciation for Konoha's history, but it wasn't difficult to see that her grandfathers and my predecessors had already filled her head with enough of it to last her a lifetime. As far as she was concerned, she'd heard it all. So she refused me, citing the myriad of responsibilities that she had to tend to after our training, and how very sorry she was."

He chuckles. Reaching out, the Sandaime grabs his pipe and lights it with a snap of his fingers, a casual display of controlled elemental manipulation that I'm not afraid to admit to being jealous of. He takes a drag, exhaling the smoke in a steady stream toward the ceiling.

"When all was said and done, Jiraiya was the only one to stay behind. A dead last, a braggart, and a bit of a pervert, he was the only one to see any worth in the knowledge I had to offer. So every day after team training the two of us would sit down in front of the memorial stone and I'd tell him about Konoha and her past.

"Some days I'd tell him the story behind a name engraved on the stone, others I'd tell him about the first great shinobi war, and at times I told him about both. I told him about the village's politics, of the politics all the Kage dealt with, even the politics surrounding the Daimyo. One day Jiraiya came to me with a question, and then another question, and then another after that. He never feared looking foolish in front of me, and soon our one sided lectures evolved into spirited debates. Looking back on it now, I don't think I've ever been so pleased with any of my students before." The Sandaime smiles ruefully. A lazy tendril of smoke drifts out of his upturned lips.

"Despite that, he never did surpass Orochimaru in my eyes. He was a delightful student, to be sure, and a pleasure to trade thoughts with, but I don't think I ever considered him to be a rival to either of his teammates in shinobi terms. Not until they'd all grown up and their true selves had shown through." The old man nods gravely at my surprised look. "Indeed. It says something, doesn't it?

"Tsunade, a revolutionary medic and frighteningly strong kunoichi in her own right, grew hateful and bitter towards Konoha when her brother and the man she loved died. The Shodai and Nidaime's waxings were little more than a distant memory in the back of her mind. She came to me in a tearful rage and told me she was leaving and never coming back, and all I could do was sign the papers and watch her walk out of the gates, never to return. She was an amazing student and an even more amazing woman, and it hurt more than I can put into words to see her go.

"Orochimaru, the one I saw unending potential in and held a similarly unending pride for, grew cold and monstrous in his pursuit of power. When the time came for me to retire I couldn't even consider making him Hokage. When I refused him, whatever might have remained of his affections towards Konoha died. He began to steal Konoha's citizens away from their homes and perform inhuman experiments on them, in search of immortality of all things." The Sandaime grimaces. "It saddens me to this day to say that I was not surprised when I discovered all that he'd done." He places his pipe down on the table and sighs.

"And then comes Jiraiya, my faithful dead last." The old man shakes his head. "He took my knowledge and he made it his own, took my love for Konoha and did the same. Took the jokes and barbs from his teammates and made them his strength. He rose high in both rank and esteem, leading many a battle in both the second and the third great shinobi wars.

"Then he traveled far and wide across the Elemental Nations and beyond, his thirst for knowledge guiding him. Along the way he made friends, almost as many friends as there are shinobi in this village. And through these friends he formed the most powerful spy network Konoha has ever had the pleasure of knowing.

"He fought tooth and nail for every last jutsu and political alliance and never once faltered where his teammates fell, and he proved my fool self wrong. He became one of the greatest shinobi Konoha had ever seen; a spymaster and a war leader and a hero."

The Sandaime falls silent. I sink back in my stiff chair, attempting to absorb his words. My anxiety is long forgotten as I stare at the Sandaime, and it occurs to me that I shouldn't know this. That I don't deserve this knowledge, so personal and visibly painful to the old man across from me.

"Why are you telling me this?" I manage to ask.

"Because I want you to realize something, Naruto," he says intently. "I want you to realize that it isn't power and knowledge that makes a great shinobi. Orochimaru and Tsunade both had more than enough of that, and it did little for them in the end.

"It's the desire to improve yourself in all areas, not just those that suit you. The ability to set aside pride in yourself in exchange for personal betterment. Being able to embrace what is right, and not necessarily what is easy. That is what makes a shinobi great. You don't have the strength or the knowledge that the Kage do, or even some of your peers. But you have the desire and the determination to learn." Reaching across his desk, the Sandaime grabs my hand and places the headband in it. "And that more than qualifies you to serve as a shinobi of Konoha."

For once in my life I can't think of a witty remark. "I- Thanks, old man."

"I assure you, it's my pleasure. And your scroll," he holds it out. Quickly tying the headband around my forehead, I snatch the scroll up, cradling it protectively under one arm. He grins. "I'm very proud of you Naruto. If you continue on the path you're on now, I have no doubt that when the day comes I'll be passing this hat on to you."

Freaking dust in my eyes. I swipe at them quickly, smiling brightly.

"Thanks. That means a lot."

"Now, I believe you have a team to meet with," The old man declares, rummaging through the papers on his desk before finally pulling one from the pile. "You've been selected by Hatake Kakashi and your teammates will be Uchiha Sasuke and Haruno Sakura. Best not keep them waiting." The door creaks open, courtesy of the Anbu guarding the door. "I'll see you soon, Naruto."

The walk out of the Hokage Tower is spent in a hazy sort of awareness. I caress the smooth steel of my headband the whole way down the steps, tracing the engraved leaf. The weight of it feels right, like it belongs there on my forehead. Like I've just regained a part of myself I've been missing for a long, long time.

So Sasuke was right about the teams after all. Somehow that doesn't dismay me as much it usually would. I'm too giddy. Too excited to start my career as a shinobi.

Now which one was Sakura again?


	3. Chapter 3

The trip back to the Academy is a quick one, and I find my team lounging on the roof after a few minutes of stalking the halls with no success. Sakura, it turns out, is the quiet one with the pink hair that always got full marks on the written exams. She's wearing a battle dress cut off at the knees the color of the leaves that constantly hang over Konoha, and the cloth holding her headband on her forehead is much the same.

I give her my most approachable smile and introduce myself, but all she does is wave shortly back. Weird.

"So you managed to con the Sandaime out of a headband after all," Sasuke jabs. I wave him off haughtily.

"As if. Old man Hokage knows he can't afford to pass me by," I scoff. Sakura tries and fails to stifle a giggle. Ouch.

"That's it, then?" Sasuke asks, eyes flicking to the scroll clutched under my arm. I grin.

"In all its glory." Strolling over to stone bench, I slap the scroll down. I notice that it's been sealed with the official insignia of the Hokage and Konoha, red ink and everything. A little shiver runs down my spine. "What do you think he gave me?" I trace the insignia, identical to the one on my forehead.

"I bet you'll find out if you open it," Sasuke suggests.

"Maybe it's an A-rank Fuuton jutsu. Or, or, maybe it's some long lost Taijutsu style the old man found way back when he wasn't old," I babble excitedly. A sudden thought occurs to me. "What if it's an S-rank Fuuton jutsu?" Sasuke groans.

"Fine, fine," I acquiesce. "You Uchiha and your impatience," I lament. Gently, ever so gently, I prick the seal off. I'm tempted to close my eyes, but I get the feeling the time for messing around is over. I silently unravel the scroll, Sasuke watching like a hawk over my shoulder, and immediately chance upon the title of the jutsu.

"No way," I breathe. Yet the jutsu's name stands stark and bold amongst the rest of text, clear as day.

Uzumaki Style: Heavenly Chakra Chains.

"Is that-?" Sasuke exclaims in surprise. My eyes move down the scroll.

The Heavenly Chakra Chains jutsu is one of many unique to the late Uzumaki clan of Uzushiogakure, and is reputed as one of the most powerful. It is a jutsu exclusive to the Uzumaki clan because of the quality of their chakra, which is specifically required for the Heavenly Chakra Chains to serve their purpose.

In short, to perform the Heavenly Chakra Chains a shinobi must have an expert grasp over shape manipulation and an above average store of Uzumaki chakra. The shinobi shapes their chakra into several links of chain, the size of which is for the shinobi to decide, assuming they have enough chakra to compensate. These chains can then be used to disrupt jutsu, act as extended appendages of sorts, or, as they are primarily used for, subdue opponents.

Special Uzumaki chakra? That can't mean what I think it means. No, the old man wouldn't have made such a big deal out of my defect if it ran in the family, right? Maybe...

I slowly unravel the scroll further, revealing an illustration of a dozen pure white links of chain erupting from a featureless shinobi and entangling around the throats of as many similarly featureless shinobi. A wall of text greets me next, detailing the particulars of shape manipulation and theories behind the Uzumaki chakra and the role it plays in the jutsu. And above it, at the very top, in bright red lettering.

S-rank Ninjutsu.

Sasuke whistles from his place beside me. "Yeah, that's definitely one of them."

Them, in this case, was the stash of secret clan jutsu that had made the Uzumaki clan so famous in the Second Great Shinobi War. It was what prompted Iwa to wipe them out in the first place. The Uzumaki clan and Uzushiogakure as a whole had been close allies with Konoha up until that point, so the Academy touched briefly on them and their vague clan techniques several times over the years.

The day we first went over their part in the Second Great Shinobi War was actually the first I'd ever heard of my clan, and sadly enough the lessons that followed never quite managed to sate my almost desperate curiosity. I still don't know what my mother's name is, much to my frustration. Or maybe my father was the Uzumaki. Not like I'll be finding out anytime soon- even the libraries don't have anything besides the generic wartime info.

"What are you two looking at?" Sakura suddenly asks right beside my left ear. I jerk back in surprise, allowing her to lean forward and study my scroll. Not a moment later she gasps, snapping up to stare at us with wide, excited grass green eyes.

"Do you know what this is!?" She cries, grabbing up the scroll and pointing at the illustration. "This is one of the seven Uzumaki Yokai techniques! They restrained Bijuu with this in the Second Great War." She waves her free arm frantically at the scroll. "It's been lost for decades!"

Seven Uzumaki what now? I rack my brain for a moment but come up woefully short on the phrase. "Looks like I'm being groomed for Hokage sooner than I thought," I crack instead, mentally filing away that particular piece of information for future research.

"Where'd you learn that?" Sasuke asks Sakura curiously. And just like that Sakura's bubbly excitement is gone, replaced with a flushed face and eyes firmly fixed on her feet.

"Oh, ah, I read it in a library somewhere," she mumbles, holding my scroll out meekly. I carefully reach out and grab it, rolling it up and securing it under my arm once more. An awkward silence falls over us. Time for a seamless segue.

"... So hey, where's this Kakashi guy?"

Damn I'm good.

Sasuke shrugs. "Iruka says he doesn't make a habit of showing up on time. Or anywhere in the general vicinity of on time."

"Well that sucks." I glance around listlessly. The rooftop is devoid of just about anything interesting, aside from a couple water towers on the far side. Hm. "Wanna spar?" I offer.

"Of course."

After a few moments carefully, carefully propping my S-rank clan jutsu up against the rails that surround the roof's perimeter, I walk out into the middle of the concrete where Sasuke is already limbering up into his fruity little Taijutsu stance. I crane my neck side to side, breathing deeply.

"Alright, let's keep this one restricted. I'd rather not spend my first week as a shinobi doing repair work because your dumbass set the Academy on fire."

Sasuke humphs. "Weapons?"

I glance uncertainly back at Sakura who's currently trying and failing to watch us discretely. "Let's say no projectiles this round. Anything else is good."

Sasuke scowls. "You know I don't use anything but shuriken in the first place," he says accusingly.

"Regardless. Let's do this!" I shout, hands flashing into my weapons pouch and each yanking out a double-ended kunai. Sasuke streaks towards me, surging for the same weak spot he always goes for at the beginning of our spars. I let my iron grip on my chakra loosen and spin around his stiff-fingered jab, bringing my right hand around in a slash shrieking with the wind-

A sharp pain flares up in the back of my head, and there's the ground. A grunt escapes my soon to be bloodied lips as I slam face first into the concrete. The unforgiving pressure of a sandaled foot appears on small of my back, preventing me from getting up.

"Now, now," An adult shinobi's voice chides above me. "That was hardly polite starting without me, you two. We haven't even introduced ourselves yet!"

And that must be Kakashi. So much for a first impression. The pressure disappears from my back, allowing me to climb to my feet, rubbing at my aching face. I fix my attacker/sensei with my fiercest glare.

Said attacker merely smiles cheerfully back. Or, I think he smiles. A facemask covers the bottom half of his face completely, and his headband is sagging over his left eye, leaving only a crinkled right eye bare. Aside from that, a forest green jounin issue flak jacket not unlike Sakura's battle dress, worn with years of hard use, hangs comfortably on the man's wiry form. The rest of his garb is a solid navy blue, same as his facemask.

"That was a cheap shot," I grumble, reaching down for my two scattered kunai.

"Good thing thing I'm not a samurai!" Kakashi replies happily. "Now have a seat, you two." Reluctantly, I grab my scroll and sit down on the bench next to Sakura. Sasuke silently takes his place on my other side.

Kakashi leans back against the railings, crossing his arms over his chest. "So, introductions. How about you start us off, Pinky."

Sakura's eyes widen. "Ah, what should I say, sensei?"

"Nothing too extensive. Just your name and some likes, dislikes, and dreams for the future should do for now," he answers easily. Sakura nods slowly.

"My name is Haruno Sakura," she says quietly. "I like reading and researching the Yokai Corps. I dislike bullies and the Bijuu." She draws herself up, hands bunching in her lap. "And one day I dream of joining the Yokai Corps and helping to protect Konoha!" She declares determinedly. I shoot her a thumbs up, but she simply faces firmly ahead.

Note to self. Figure out what's wrong with Sakura.

"Interesting," Kakashi drawls. "Your turn, Uchiha."

Oof. Right off the bat, too.

"My name is Sasuke," Said Uchiha insists, tone steely. "My likes are training and tomatoes. My dislikes are people that compare me to others. My goal as a shinobi is to make a name for myself, separate from my family or anything else." Kakashi taps his chin thoughtfully.

"Also interesting. Now you, shorty. Introduce yourself."

"I'm Uzumaki Naruto," I begin, brushing off the jab. "My likes are ramen and studying the shinobi arts. My dislikes are pessimists and cheaters. My dream is to master my chakra defect and become a great shinobi!" Kakashi nods in acceptance.

"Noted." His eye crinkles into a smile. "Well, you three aren't the worst graduates I've ever seen. In fact, I think we're going to have a great time together." His head tilts ever so slightly, his single gray eye regarding us intently. "That is, if you pass the test."

Uh. I glance between Sasuke and Sakura, but they're as bewildered as I am. "Sensei?" I say hesitantly. "We already passed the graduation test."

"Oh, sure you have," Kakashi agrees. "I'm talking about a different test. A much, much more important test. The Academy exam was just there to make sure you had the shinobi potential to take the genin test," he explains happily. "This is the one that really decides whether or not you keep that headband come tomorrow or trade it in for some fashionable merchant clothes."

My brows furrow. I don't like the sound of that at all.

"What is it?" Sakura asks. Kakashi pushes off the railing, beckoning us to follow.

"Let's find out!" And then he's off, hopping up onto the steel beams and over to the nearest rooftop at breakneck speed.

Shouting a curse, I jump up from the bench and vault over the railing, propelling myself over the gap between the Academy and the nearest apartment complex with a concentrated gust of chakra. Already Kakashi-sensei is little more than a dot on the horizon, and the world blurs as I push to close the gap.

Sasuke appears at my side in a flurry of leaves, easily assuming an even pace with me. Leaping over yet another rooftop and hastily avoiding slamming into a startled chunin, I chance a look behind me and see Sakura's pink hair bobbing a few buildings behind us.

Kakashi slips constantly in and out of sight throughout the chase, and soon the bustling activity and stone footing of the marketplace dissolves into the sparsely populated but no less active training ground sector and it's crowded trees and sturdy branches. Sasuke and I navigate the treetops as easily as can be expected while keeping a constantly distant focus. Soon enough the they give way to dead, dry earth and chain link fences rising higher than my apartment building.

We come bursting out of the last tree, landing in skidding crouches in front of Kakashi, who happens to be casually leaning against said chain link fence reading a book. Straightening up, I breathe deeply once, twice, three times. Exhale.

"You're an ass," I say flatly. Kakashi presses his book to his chest.

"Oh, my heart."

A sharp rustling sound a second later warrants Sakura's arrival. The girl makes the jump about halfway towards us and lands hard on her feet, stumbling once and then falling to her knees gasping for breath.

"Why did you bring us here?" Sasuke demands. Kakashi blinks innocently.

"For your test, of course," he says. Scowling, I finally look past him and past the towering fences, towards the apparent location of our real genin test. My mouth drops open.

It's a forest. A really, really bigforest. My head tilts backward, straining to take it all in. An image flashes behind my eyes, of a different view of this forest, from atop the Yondaime's head. They'd been eye level up there, the trees, and looked unnaturally large, but down here it was beyond ridiculous. They blot out the very sun itself, shrouding everything below in an artificial dusk. A flash of bright red catches my eye, a sign hanging on the fence high above Kakashi-sensei's head. Training Ground 44, it reads. The Forest of Death.

This is where we're taking our genin test? What the hell kind of test is it?

"Now, the rules are simple," Kakashi explains, heading off along the fence. Sasuke and I exchange a glance before following cautiously behind. "All you have to do is make it to that tower right there poking through the treeline before sunset and you three are as good as mine." The masked jounin stops besides an open gate. "Whenever you're ready."

"What's the catch?" Sasuke asks bluntly, peering forward into the ominous forest.

"Maa, nothing much," Kakashi says, slapping Sasuke on the back and sending him staggering through the gate. "All that's in there are a few bugs and the odd tiger." He reaches out and ruffles Sakura's hair. "As long as you keep your head you'll be fine." He assures her.

I slink in through the fence behind Sakura, and the gate slams loudly shut behind me, dozens of seals lighting up briefly across its surface and fading away just as quickly. A roar echoes somewhere off to the right, deep in the forest. Kakashi gives us a thumbs up from his spot behind the fence just before disappearing in a swirl of leaves.

"Good luck!"

I stare blankly at the falling leaves for a little while, just trying to process it all. I fail.

"What the hell just happened?"

Sakura shrugs helplessly and Sasuke ignores me entirely, a pensive expression settling on his features.

"No, seriously," I insist. "What the hellwas that?"

"I've heard about this test before," Sasuke admits, frowning. "From some of my cousins a few years ago. I don't think it's ever been held here before, though..." He shakes his head in frustration. "Let's just get to the tower. We can sort things out when we've passed."

"Can he even do that?" I press as we set off at an easy run into the forest. "Just drop us off here without telling us what our objective is? That's his job, isn't it?"

"What do you mean, Naruto?" Sakura asks confusedly. I roll my eyes.

"He's obviously not telling us something. You really think all we have to do is get past a couple tigers and reach that tower to become shinobi? What would be the point of that?" I ask harshly. Sakura flinches, mumbling an apology.

Ah, great. Snap at the shy girl for asking a question, Naruto. What could possibly go wrong? I open my mouth to apologize, only to be stopped short by a familiar roar, this one closer than before. I jerk to a stop, reaching into my weapon's pouch and pulling out my double ended kunai. The titanic treetops rustle above us and a flash of white catches the corner of my eye.

A muffled boom reaches my ears and I spin, coming face to face with the biggest tiger I've ever seen. As big as old man Teuchi's ramen stand, bigger even. Its fur is a dirty white striped with purple, and its eyes are a violent shade of yellow, same as its bared teeth. Its nostrils flare and it lets loose a rumbling growl that sets the hairs on the back of my neck on edge.

Three more booms rend the air, and I take my eyes off the tiger in front of me just long enough to see three more of equally monstrous stature prowling forward, entrapping us. Blood stains the fur of one and drips from the teeth of the other two.

"Sasuke," I say lowly. "I'll take the two to your left, you take the on directly behind me, Sakura-" A cloud of smoke drifts past my vision, revealing a broken branch on the ground in place of my pink-haired teammate. "Awesome," I snarl, just as the tiger in front of me roars and pounces.

My chakra explodes free, shrieking, and I spin around the tiger's swiping claw and sink my kunai into its shoulder. It yowls, tail whipping around and smacking me in the back of the head hard enough to send stars spiralling into my vision. I hurriedly drag my kunai out, praying for a severed tendon, and throw out my other hand, blasting the beast's head backwards with a surge of wind and sending it staggering back.

"Fire Release: Great Fireball!" Heat dances behind me, an uncomfortable warmth at my back. One of the tigers roars in pain.

The tiger on Sakura's side comes bearing down on me, teeth flashing toward my neck. I spin away, sweeping both arms forward and pushing my chakra with all my might. It shoves savagely behind the tiger, sending it tumbling headfirst into a tree. Sasuke appears at my side, hands flashing through the seals to another katon jutsu, and I turn to deal with the pissed off tiger behind him.

Wait. Tiger?

A snapping above me reveals the fourth tiger, navigating the treetops as easily as one of old man Hokage's monkey summons. I follow it incredulously as it travels farther and farther out among the branches until it's almost directly above me and Sasuke. The tiger on the ground growls, stalking forward, and its tail lashes out at my face. I duck under the blow and bring my left arm up sharply, severing a solid foot of the monstrous appendage.

Spinning out of the way of yet another furious pounce, I see Sasuke being backed up by his two tigers, and see the tiger in the treetops poised directly above him. My eyes widen.

"Sasuke!" I shout, and immediately he disappears in a shunshin. The fourth tigers yowls furiously, landing on the other two with a crash.

Instinct screams at me to move and I dive out to the side, the final tiger's massive bulk thundering past. Rolling to my feet, I let my kunai drop and flash forward. My chakra howls around me and I slam a fist into the beast's side, sending it skidding into the thrashing pile of its brethren. A fireball from above engulfs them all, courtesy of Sasuke from his place above me.

I'm bracing myself for another pass when four translucent walls of shimmering blue spring to life around the enraged tigers. One of them rushes forward and bounces off the wall in front of me ineffectually, snarling.

A hissing sound fills the air.

Chakra comes to life in the form of dozens of little squares lighting up within the barrier. Flames brighter and infinitely more dangerous than the katon jutsu Sasuke was slinging around fill the great big chakra box. I stare in silence as the barrier falls and the smoke settles, along with the pink mist that used to be four giant tigers.

Sakura inches out from behind a tree to my left, slipping a sealing brush into her weapons pouch. She smiles nervously at me.

I'm not sure what to say, so I blurt out the first thing that comes to mind. "Nice."

Sasuke lands heavily beside me. Straightening up, he regards Sakura curiously. "Where'd you learn that?"

Sakura's smile morphs into something just the slightest bit mischievous. "I read it in a library."

I chuckle, turning to look for my kunai. "So was that it, you think?" I call, making for a particularly scorched tree. Sasuke shrugs.

"Probably."

OoOoO

Oh god oh god oh god oh god.

Bark solid as stone and jagged as a rusty katana tugs at my clothes and leaves angry red scrapes on my hands as I scale one of the massive trees the Forest of Death is filled to the brim with. My breath heaves in and out of my chest and blood pounds through my veins. A curious light headed feeling settled over me about an hour ago and has yet to clear up. There's something scuttling up the bark below me.

Oh god oh god oh god.

A thick branch reaches out from a nearby tree and I waste no time latching onto it, swinging up and into a crouch. The creature freezes in its tracks, shivers, and hisses. And then it leaps from the trunk, right at my face.

I shriek, leaping backwards and off the branch into a freefall. Desperately, I make a yanking motion with my right hand and my chakra slams into me like a brick wall, sending me back-first into the tree. My head impacts it with an echoing crack and for a terrifying moment white noise is all I know. After an eternity my senses return to me and I find myself hugging the trunk with all my might, forehead pressed roughly up against it.

Leaves rustle above me. Another hiss.

Oh god.

Spotting a branch about ten feet below me, I shimmy down the trunk and set to getting back to ground level, one branch at a time. The creature is never far behind, spurring me on faster and more recklessly than is probably recommended while navigating trees the size of mountains. I couldn't really care less at this point, though.

I nearly cry when I spot the ground and my teammates, I'm so relieved. Dropping down from the final branch, I perform a beautiful diving roll behind Sakura, peeking over her shoulder fearfully. Sasuke sighs, though whether it's from or annoyance or fatigue I can't tell, and flits quickly through the handseals for the Great Fireball. He unleashes it just as the hellbeast hits the ground, and the horse-sized creature goes up with a heavenly woosh. Its screeches are music to my ears.

I stay safely behind my pink-haired human shield until it's stopped making noise entirely and its various limbs are twitching in the air. Then I rush over and kick it as hard as I can, over and over and over.

"I hate spiders," I growl. Said spider's body suddenly gives under my mighty kicks with a sharp crack, and a nasty yellow goo spills out of the hole. I take a hasty step back, gagging.

Sasuke snorts. "You done, princess? Or do you have some more bugs you'd like me to swat for you?" I whirl around, jabbing my index finger at him.

"You can blow me, Uchiha. Spiders are evil in its purest form and I'll have no part-"

"Uh, guys?" Sakura breaks in hesitantly. "That's the tower over there, isn't it?" She points at said tower, obscured by some leaves but very very close. Never have I seen a more beautiful sight as that great red tower.

Not a minute later I slam the tower door's open, stumbling inside and just about collapsing into the arms of one very surprised Iruka-sensei. Sasuke and Sakura follow in at a perhaps saner pace.

"It was so awful, Iruka-sensei," I babble. "There were tigers as big as Ichiraku's and snakes longer than your lectures on Genjutsu-"

"So you three made it," Iruka-sensei observes, amused. "Just in time, too. Hokage-sama will be here at any moment with the jounin sensei for the final evaluations."

"-a pack of wolves tried to tear off my junk and a bear ate all my shuriken-"

"The rest of your classmates that got through the test will be on the top floor, and there's some food and medic nin on the third floor if you can't wait," Iruka-sensei explains. "You'll want to hurry though."

"-and a demon spider chased me up a tree!"

Iruka-sensei rolls his eyes in exasperation, setting me firmly on my feet. "Go on with your teammates, Naruto, before you get disqualified for messing around down here. You can tell me all about it later," he urges. I sullenly comply, falling into step beside Sakura. I gaze forlornly at the third floor and the line of tables adorned with meats of all shapes and sizes as we pass, but somehow manage to power through to the top floor.

We emerge into a bare room about five times the size of Iruka-sensei's classroom speckled with various groups of three of my classmates from the Academy. The floor is smooth faded green stone and the walls a uniform gray. A few teams are sitting on a platform on the far side of the room with concrete steps. A quick sweep of the room shows that none of them look as disheveled as Sakura, Sasuke and I, to my annoyance.

"Hey, Naruto!" Oh, perfect.

Kiba waves enthusiastically from his spot across the room, breaking away from his huddle with a small girl in a beige coat and a tall boy in a fully body trenchcoat. Hinata and Shino, I vaguely recall. They follow dutifully behind the boisterous Inuzuka as he threads his way through the teams towards us.

"You guys finally showed up, eh?," Kiba asks, grinning tauntingly. "Didn't think you would manage to shake that bear. Good on you." My eye twitches.

"Thanks," Sakura says softly, inadvertently heading off the verbal kunai I was about to take to Kiba's face.

"No problem. So which task did they saddle you guys with?" Kiba asks, a bit more seriously. Something clenches in my gut. I knewthere was something I was missing. I knew-

"We were only told to make it to the tower before sunset," Sasuke answers. Kiba winces.

"Courrier team, huh? That sucks, I'd never have guessed they'd put you two there. We got tracking." He holds up a scroll colored red around the edges with the kanji for track emblazoned on it.

"... I'm confused," I announce. Sakura nods in agreement.

"We weren't told that there were specific team categories," Sasuke says. Kiba frowns.

"You mean your sensei didn't tell you?"

"Our sensei threw us in here and wished us good luck and that's about it," I reply sourly. Kiba gapes.

"Seriously?"

"Seriously," Sasuke confirms dryly. Kiba makes to ask another question, but suddenly falls silent, staring at something behind us.

It's old man Hokage and a bunch of older looking shinobi with jounin vests that I don't recognize, and there's Kakashi in the very back, slouching along with his tiny orange book. I step aside,  
allowing him to pass, followed by all but two jounin, Kakashi and an absolutely gorgeous woman dressed in bandages of all things with black hair and crimson eyes. Kakashi sidles up beside us, keeping his nose buried in his book, and the black haired woman walks over to Kiba and his team, murmuring lowly to them.

The rest of the jounin break off in a similar manner, each seeking out their respective teams until it's just the old man stepping up onto the platform on the far side of the room. He clears his throat, instantly silencing the quiet mutterings that had been drifting through the room. Clasping his hands together, he surveys the room with serious eyes. Hokage eyes.

"You are all here today because you've decided that you wish to spend your lives as one of Konoha's shinobi, protecting her and her interests alike. You are all here today because you've worked hard day in and day out to reach the level of skill necessary to become a shinobi of Konoha, and you're here because you had the force of will to make it through our infamous Training Ground 44 in pursuit of your goals.

"Not all of you here will become shinobi today, I am afraid. That does not mean this has all been for nothing, though. Not at all. Return to the Academy, study and practise hard, and I have no doubt I'll be adding your names to our roster come next year." He smiles. "For those of you that do ascend to the rank of shinobi, I'd like to give you my sincerest congratulations and hopes that your career is a safe and prosperous one.

"If ever you find yourselves in need of assistance that isn't being provided by your jounin sensei or your teammates, know that your fellow shinobi are always willing to help. And myself too, if I can find the time." He nods sharply. "Your jounin sensei will take things from here, I believe. Best of luck to you all." And just like that he steps down from the platform and walks calmly back to the exit, sparing me a nod on his way out the door, and he's gone.

Noise kicks up once again, shouts of triumph and wails of dismay filling the room. I turn to find Kakashi heading for the stairs himself and hurry after him.

"You're the worst," I accuse, scowling fiercely. My apparent sensei peeks over his book.

"Whatever do you mean?"

"You didn't tell us anything about the test," Sasuke explains with a scowl of his own, on the other side of our apparent sensei. "You didn't even tell us what type of team we were."

"I told you all you needed to know," Kakashi disagrees. "And you're obviously heavy assault."

"Obviously?" I ask incredulously.

"Obviously," Kakashi confirms. "Why else would I bug you with pheromones to attract predators if not for heavy assault?"

And just like that my fragile grip on my temper shatters under the crushing weight of my rage.

"You what!?" I roar, leaping in front of him, shoving my index finger in his chest. "Do you know how close I came to not being able to father children because of your stupid pheromones, how many of my perfectly good shuriken got eaten? How did you even dothat?"

"When we were at the gate," Sasuke says, eyes widening in realization. "You slapped me on the back and ruffled Sakura's hair."

"What about me?" I demand. "I'm the one they went after every single time and he never even touched-" The words freeze in my throat. "The roof," I breathe. Kakashi's eye quirks up in a smile.

"I hit you with an extra large dose for starting fights without your sensei's consent." My hands spasm in a choking motion, and for a brief instant I see red.

"So, ah, sensei," Sakura hurriedly speaks up. "Did we pass?"

"Oh, with flying colors!" Kakashi says enthusiastically, and the earth-shattering fury subsides in me, just a bit. "You three are all mine now!" Somehow, that no longer sounds as happy a prospect as it did a few hours ago.

"When's our first training session?" Sasuke asks.

"Nine o' clock sharp tomorrow morning at training ground seven," Kakashi supplies. "I'd suggest getting a good night's sleep tonight. You'll be needing it." With that he brushes past me the rest of the way down the steps. "Oh, and one more thing," he calls, stopping just inside the entrance. Reaching into his pocket, he pulls out a small purple pellet the size of my thumbnail and flicks it at me. My hand reaches out and snatches it from the air, and I stare at it, puzzled.

Then it explodes in my face.

Rancid purple smoke envelops me and Sasuke and Sakura, and I quickly jump down the rest of the stairs out of the cloud, coughing and waving a hand violently in front of my face.

"What the hell was that?" I choke out.

Kakashi grins. "The rest of the pheromones. See you tomorrow!" And with that he disappears in a swirl of leaves.

"Son of a bitch."


	4. Chapter 4

The training ground is quiet. The blanket noise of Konoha activity is far away and the air is still. The area is, unsurprisingly, devoid of any and all wildlife, and the nearly ever present sounds of steel on steel or fist on flesh are also absent. Not a good sign. I do my best to keep my breathing even and slow, but nonetheless my every exhale seems thunderous.

Carefully, I creep from my perch in a high branch among the forested area of the training ground, down the trunk and to the ground. In my right hand I clutch a kunai, in my left, the wind. My chakra fluctuates to and fro, weaving between my loosely held fingers; it's a comforting presence, if nothing else. I peer through a shroud of drooping branches into the training ground's dirt clearing, and the three metal boxes lying innocuously in the middle. My mouth waters.

I ease back, circling around just within the boundaries of the miniature forest until I'm on the opposite side of the plainly decorated bento boxes. I slip silently past a reaching bush, huddling behind another tree. I'm only going to get a split second to do this. I have to make it count.

"There you are!"

I bite down on a gasp and adrenaline surges in my veins. I lunge to the side, kunai and wind immediately forgotten, aiming for the protective confines of a large clump of bushes. An iron grip closes around the back of my collar and yanks.

I'm dragged flailing and gagging like a baited fish out of the protection of the growth and dropped at the sandaled feet of my sensei. He crosses his arms, looking at me with stark disapproval.

"And just what do you think you were doing? A heavy-assault nin does not skirt around the conflict to grab the objective, especially when their teammates are already engaged in said conflict."

"I lasted longer than them, though, didn't I?" I manage to say between coughs. I flinch away from the predicted smack upside the head, but it comes from the right this time. My abused ear screams in pain.

"Yet you still failed. Like a coward this time."

"I'll take this over getting beaten to hell while Sakura and Sasuke kawarimi themselves to safety, thanks," I say sourly.

Kakashi cocks his head. "Who said I'm not going to beat you to hell anyway?" I glare sullenly up at him and the stupid trio of bells dangling mockingly from his waist, rubbing at my ear. He sighs. "Did you ever consider asking them to stay with you when I started using Taijutsu?" He asks mildly.

My hand reaches up of its own accord to scratch the back of my head. "I guess not," I admit reluctantly.

"Shocking."

"Yeah, well. Can I at least get some consolation food for being the last man standing?" I beg. Yes, I beg. I'm already on my knees, so I might as well go all in at this point. I'm hungry, damn it.

Kakashi blinks in surprise. "But Naruto, I'm the last man standing," he points out in mock confusion.

"You're the worst," I groan, pushing myself to my feet.

Kakashi smiles. "So you say. Now run along. I prefer to eat my lunch in peace."

I stalk away, bringing my impotent fury and rumbling stomach with me. I arrive at the small pond training ground seven features in time to see Sasuke latch onto a branch near the top of one of the taller trees after a short vertical sprint up its trunk. Out on the pond, Sakura walks slowly atop the waters, an intense expression of concentration on her face. Even in my anger I can admit she looks pretty cute.

"Finally decided to show up?" Sasuke calls down scornfully at me. I give him a one fingered salute.

"Got tired of getting my ass kicked in close combat while you guys practised your Kawarimi!" I holler back. Sasuke snorts and drops down, retreating a few feet away from the tree and sprinting for it again. Spotting a nice little patch of grass in the shade, I take a seat and pull a scroll free from my weapons pouch. The label reads Advanced Shape Manipulation for Novices. I find the spot I left off at easily enough, considering I've been reading the same page for the last five days.

The theory behind shape manipulation is pretty simple. About as simple as the nature transformation for. It's basically just honing your control over your chakra through a bunch of little tricks until you have enough skill to hold it in whatever shape it is you want it to take.  
The only issue is that while shape manipulation and elemental transformation are rather simple by themselves, elemental shape manipulation is hard. The Yondaime couldn't even do it. He spent years trying to incorporate elemental transformation into his Rasengan, to no avail. The Yondaime. It involves a split in concentration that's almost impossible to maintain in the heat of battle. It's something that only the most skilled shinobi can pull off.

Fortunately, I don't have to worry about the nature transformation because of my trusty old chakra defect, so split concentration won't be an issue. Unfortunately, it also renders information on vanilla shape manipulation virtually useless to me. And as if that weren't enough, combined shape manipulation and nature transformation is so rare that there isn't a scroll on it in the Academy library.

So now, while my teammates defy gravity and balance kunai on their noses, I get to sit here and stare at theoretical nonsense and reverse engineer an advanced method of chakra control, because that's the only thing I can do with my chakra right now.

God but I love being a shinobi.

I shake my head, driving the pessimistic thoughts from my head, and pull a long clear balloon from my pocket. Time for yet another fruitless bout of chakra training. I blow the balloon up to about as large as my head and deftly tie it off. I've gotten previous ones to the size of my torso before, but I'll be needing room in there for this particular exercise. Holding it gently between my palms, I carefully channel my chakra into it.

Bulges appear on the surface of the balloon as it slowly but steadily scroll suggests starting with simple shapes for this exercise, and then moving on to more complicated manipulations like weapons or animals later. I'm aiming for a cube this time. I keep the image of it firmly in my mind while I wrestle my flighty chakra into a solid shape. The balloon continues to swell. I grit my teeth and focus on reigning my chakra back into a tight formation.

The balloon promptly explodes in my face.

I try two dozen more times before I snatch the bag of balloons out of my pocket and chuck them into the pond with a wordless roar of frustration.

"Sasuke!" I shout. "Branch!" After a brief pause a bare branch about a foot long comes hurtling towards my face like some sort of primitive shuriken. I pluck it out of the air and set to working on a different exercise. I haven't tried this one yet, now that I think about it. Probably because it's even more basic than the balloon one- all I have to do is mold my chakra to the shape of the stick and hold it like that. According to the scroll I'll know I've got it when the whole thing is glowing a faint blue.

My chakra swirls around the stick, little more than an occasional distortion of light.

… Oh, right. Wind.

The stick sinks into the far side of the pond with a muted plop.

I run through the rest of what the thin scroll has to offer with similar success, and by the time the scroll joins the rest of the misfit chakra control mediums in the pond, Academy-related consequences be damned, the sun is already past its zenith. Staggering to my feet, I spy Sakura resting with a bottle of water and a scroll unravelled across her knees on the other side of the pond. A faint rustling sound above me accompanied by the steady thump thump thump of sandaled feet on bark alerts me to Sasuke's presence just as he drops down in front of me.

He smirks. "Ready to start training now?" And there goes the final straw.

"Taijutsu brawl, full restrictions," I growl. "To the death." Sasuke's eyes widen and he performs a hasty backflip away as my chakra comes howling to the forefront. Crouching, I launch myself up into the air and latch onto a low hanging branch, swinging up and disappearing amidst the leaves. Below, Sasuke relaxes into his Taijutsu stance, head swiveling to and fro.

Bursting from the treetop, I throw my arm back for a haymaker. A feinted haymaker. Sasuke leaps out of the way, of course, and I hit the ground in a roll. Bracing my feet against the ground, I pivot and surge forward out of my roll, catching him off guard in his attempted pursuit. I slam my chakra forward and lay into his hasty cross guard with a clenched fist, sending him staggering. I move forward, but jerk back at the last second as the Uchiha rolls into a backwards somersault and performs a pivot of his own.

I duck the stiff-fingered jab he sends at my throat, allowing my headband to absorb the blow and drop, sweeping his legs out from under him. His other arm shoots out and plants itself firmly on the ground. HIs torso twists, and his leg comes spinning around and nails me full on in the face, sending me tumbling. Pushing myself to my feet, I hock and spit a glob of blood on the dirt. Ow.

Sasuke appears in my face, fingers flashing for my solar plexus. Quickly grabbing for my chakra, I spin around the precise and no doubt mind numbingly painful attack, laying into him with a open palm strike at his nose. He blocks it with one arm and clamps my wrist with the other, spinning and twisting, and heaves me over his shoulder.

I glimpse a tree approaching at perilous speeds and pull savagely at my chakra. A veritable wall of wind envelops me, slowing me just enough enough to catch myself on the trunk in a vertical crouch. Another push, and I'm rocketing back towards my woefully off guard sparring victim. He throws up another hurried cross block in front of his face, but it's far too late for that. A feral grin twists my features.

"Lariat!" My right arm swings for his throat.

And the stupid asshole trips.

He falls backward onto his shoulders, curls up, and arches upward, and oh god my ribs. My vision flickers black as his feet catch me in the chest, sending me flying. The weight of a thousand Bijuu presses down on my ribs, and it takes all of my will-power to clench my teeth around pained sound and curl myself into a ball. I hit the ground hard, of course, completely avoiding the nice soft water sitting kindly a few feet behind me. I bounce a few times for good measure, coming to an abrupt stop on something smooth and squishy. Someone squeaks above me.

I crack an eye open and Sakura's surprised and concerned visage appears above me. Man, but is her lap comfy.

"You're in," I gasp. "Taijutsu only, full restrictions." I roll off of her, wincing.

"Wha-?" She's cut off quite handily by Sasuke leaping clear across the pond, no doubt hitting her with the full brunt of that constipated battle scowl of his. Sakura immediately bolts for the pond, leaving me to regain my senses one painful breath at a time.

My hand rubs tenderly at my chest. "I can't believe he just did that." I manage to sit up, hissing forcefully through my teeth. "What kind of shinobi trips on dirt?"

I make it back up after another minute or so of dramatic groaning, and find Sakura and Sasuke facing off atop the water. Well, Sakura is in a solid Taijutsu stance, at least- Sasuke is sort of stumbling around like my old caretaker after her date nights. Spotting an opportunity for painful mischief, I quickly turn and scurry up a looming tree.

My teammates meet in a brief bout of Taijutsu that is quite frankly painful to watch. Sasuke can't keep a solid footing to save his life and Sakura isn't good enough at Taijutsu to capitalize on it. I'll have to fix that. I shimmy up and over and across until I'm perched above them. They break apart for a breath, and I strike.

"Free for all!" I bellow gleefully, rocketing from the tangle of treetops above. Sasuke curses loudly, twisting and diving for the water. "Not this time you slippery bastard!" My arms wrap around his chest as I crash bodily into him, and I shove my face into his side just in time to avoid the frantic jab at my eyes. The pond swallows us up in the next instant while he squirms and thrashes and I squeeze tighter and tighter on his chest. After about a minute of struggling he goes limp.

I roll my eyes, leaning back and planting both feet against his head. Quick as lightning he breaks free of my now awkward grip and makes for the surface. There's an Uchiha for you. I kick my way up after him, surfacing to see him attempting to climb back onto the water while Sakura edges back from the two of us, her eyes on something behind me. I splash around.

Kakashi peers down at me curiously. "I don't think I've ever seen chakra control training done like that before," he muses slowly.

Oh goodie. "What can I say? I think outside the box," I reply. Kakashi nods pleasantly.

"Good for you. Now get out of the water- you have thirty seconds until our next combat session."

Sigh.

* * *

My shirt comes off with a wet tearing sound, dripping water and pink, diluted blood. I flop ungracefully to the ground, crossing my legs and set to work wringing out my soaked garment. I shake my sopping hair, grunting in annoyance. I snap my shirt out, eyeing it critically.

Yeah, it's not going to get much drier than that. I slip it back on, taking care not to put pressure on the large purple bruise on my right side or the shallow cut just above my belly button. Snapping my weapons pouch off my thigh, I empty it of its contents and wring it out as well. My gaze flickers to the right as I reach for a kunai to dry off.

My pretty- well, my female teammate- is sitting stiffly up against a training dummy log, pawing ineffectually at her own clothing. She hisses in pain, snatching her hand back from the sleeve of her battle dress. Changing her mind, she peels the middle slit of the dark green material back, revealing smooth, wet, pale flesh. Bruised flesh. I wince at the sight of the ugly splotches of color traveling up her legs to the cutoff of her skin tight black shorts.

I deposit my kunai into the weapons pouch, reaching out for another while keeping a discrete eye on Sakura. She gingerly massages her thighs, and an honest to god whimper drifts past her lips. A whimper. I can feel my bleeding heart soaking through my shirt already.

"Well, I don't know about you three, but I had a blast that time!" Kakashi says happily from his leaning position against another dummy. In his left hand is Sasuke's sandal and dangling from his right is a double ended kunai still dripping with my blood. "You almost made me try."

"Gee, thanks," I mutter, grabbing a damp shuriken from the pile.

"Nobody likes a sore loser, Naruto," he chides.

"Then he's screwed twice over," Sasuke snarks from his tree perch. I scowl up at him, but decide it isn't worth the effort and turn back to my work.

"So are we going to pick up a mission today?" I ask, more out of desperate habit than anything as I swipe my final shuriken off on my stained orange pants. The answer was no the first day of training, it was no the second day, the third, the four, and the fifth. And now for the sixth-

"I don't see why not," Kakashi agrees. My head snaps up, eyes wide. Sasuke collapses to the ground a few feet beside me with a muffled grunt, startled right off his branch.

"Seriously?" I press. Kakashi nods.

"Of course. You three have learned the lesson you needed to learn, even if I didhave to give you the answer. You're ready."

"Wait wait wait," I say, waving my hands. "Let me get this straight. You're telling me we haven't done any missions yet because we weren't working together? We didn't even have to get the stupid bells!?" Kakashi raises a singular eyebrow.

"Did you really think I expected a team of genin fresh out of the Academy to take anything more than a beating from a veteran jounin?"

The worst.

"Does this mean we can start eating lunch again?" Sakura pipes up, timidly hopeful.

"Nope," Kakashi denies cheerfully. "Still need a bell for that." Sakura moans in dismay, clutching at her stomach.

"What kind of mission will we be going on?" Sasuke questions, climbing to his feet and stretching his nicked and bleeding arms above his head. Kakashi shrugs.

"Depends on what Hokage-sama gives us." He flicks his wrist and throws Sasuke's dark blue sandal back to him, spinning my kunai in his hand thoughtfully for a moment before tossing it underhand to me. "We won't be getting any missions if we don't hurry, though. The desk will be closing down soon."

That late already? My eyes turn skyward, and sure enough the sun is dipping behind the Nidaime's stone head, casting the distant village in shadow. Time to go, then. Clipping my weapons pouch back to my thigh, I rise laboriously to follow Kakashi and Sasuke, who are already heading for the edge of the trees at an easy pace. I absently dislodge one of Sasuke's kunai from a training dummy and deposit it with the rest. Finders keepers, prick.

A quiet moan behind me stops me just as I'm about to leave the training ground.

"Idiot," I growl, rushing back to my female teammate. She has one leg curled underneath her and both arms pressing against the ground, struggling to stand. "Here, I've got you," I say quickly, wrapping my arms gently around her shoulders and lifting her up. She tenses, but stays steady when I let her go.

"I'm sorry," she blurts. "I've never been this sore right after a spar before."

"You've also never had the pleasure of getting your ass beaten black and blue by our wonderful sensei before," I reassure her dryly. She takes a few stiff steps, gradually relaxing into a steady walk. I fall into step beside her, taking turns studying my teammate and admiring the general orange hue of sunset-bathed Konoha.

"Hey, I meant to apologize," I speak up, when the silence becomes too much. "For sneaking off this morning. It was pretty screwed up of me."

"It's fine," she hastens to assure me. "It's mostly my fault, anyway. I didn't realize until you made that comment to Sasuke how your, ah, defect would affect you in combat. I just thought... well, I didn't think, really." She finishes meekly. A frown steals onto my face. Sasuke would have sooner slapped an Uchiha emblem on the back of his shirt than allowed me that much ground. What's up with this girl?

"That's hardly fair," I protest, to her surprise. "Not knowing the intricacies of my defect a week after we became teammates isn't a hard mistake to make. Of the three of us, Sasuke is obviously the one to blame," I declare. "I've been kicking that guy's ass for years. He knows my fighting style inside and out. I wouldn't be surprised if he decided to hang back just to spite me." Sakura smiles at that, the ever present furrow lifting from her brow. Booyah, Uzumaki.

"Besides, you stuck by me today. Better late than never, eh?" I venture. Sakura bobs her head in agreement.

"Thanks, Naruto." She says softly.

"No problem."

Sasuke and Kakashi don't appear when we exit the cluster of training grounds onto a busy market road, so we make the walk to the Hokage Tower by ourselves. Around us merchants clamber to get rid of the rest of their daily stock before packing up their stalls and civilians and shinobi alike swarm around them for an early dinner. One stall in particular catches my eye, nestled between two squid and produce vendors, and I quickly grab Sakura's hand and tug her through the seething waves of Konoha citizens.

The woman behind the stall is old and rather small, her snow white hair tied into a neat bun, wearing a worn kimono smattered with vivid cherry blossoms and a placid expression. Her skin is almost as pale as her hair, and laugh lines and crows feet alike mark her advanced age.

We exchange some small talk while I peruse the myriad of tiny jars, and after a minute I decide on a maroon one. Counting out a few bills, I promptly grab Sakura's hand and yank her away once more, this time into a small alley.

"N-Naruto?" Sakura stutters. I offer her the jar.

"Here, rub this on your legs. It's a muscle relaxer." I say.

"What about you?"

"Waste of salve," I respond. "I heal fast. The bruises Kakashi gave me won't last the night."

She hesitates, glancing over her shoulder, but takes the jar. She pops the top and sniffs it. Then she dips her fingertips in and shifts a slit in her dress aside, rubbing it into a particularly bruised spot on her thigh. I force my gaze away, admiring the grimy gray bricks and overflowing trash cans on display in the alley.

"Ah," Sakura gasps. I grin.

"Good stuff, right?" I peek over and see her nod, bending down further to rub at her calf.

"It's so warm," she says blissfully.

"Yeah. That stall has saved me more than once heading in to classes at the Academy covered in really bad bruises, burns, lacerations..." I pause in my counting of the ways in which Sasuke has harmed my person at Sakura's horrified look. "Nothing too bad, of course! Just some... uncomfortable stuff. Point is, that old lady makes great salves," I finish lamely.

Finishing up on her legs, Sakura dips into the jar again and smears it on both her arms, covering the dark splotches. Her fingers go to the zipper on her dark green dress and hovers there. She bites her lip.

Oh.

I spin around, feeling my cheeks heat up, and leave her to it. My thoughts eventually drift off to the scroll back at my apartment, locked up in a strongbox under the wiggly tile in the bathroom. The S-rank Uzumaki clan jutsu. The heat drains from my face and my hands clench into fists. I'm missing something, I know it. There has to be a scroll I've missed in the library. The old man wouldn't screw me like that.

A slender finger taps on my shoulder, belonging to a certain blushing teammate of mine. She tries to hand me the jar back, but I wave her off, grabbing her hand for a third- fourth?- time and diving into the fray of the market district. I'm only doing it to make sure we don't get split up. Honest.

I let go when we finally make it through the worst of the throng and veer sharply towards the Hokage Tower, rising high above the buildings surrounding it, blotting out the setting sun. My mind settles back on the scroll in my apartment, and I'm pondering the connection between my defect and the special Uzumaki chakra when a thought occurs to me.

"That's right!" I cry, snapping my fingers. "I wanted to ask you about that stuff you said on the roof," I say, turning inquisitive eyes on Sakura.

She blinks, startled. "You mean about the Uzumaki?"

I nod. "I've never heard about the seven Yokai techniques before," I explain. "You wouldn't happen to remember the name of the scroll you learned that from, would you?"

"Ah, no. I read it a while ago." She looks down. "Sorry."

"No biggie," I assure her, carefully masking my disappointment. Looks like I'll just have to wait until the jackass that has it now returns it.

We finally arrive at the high-arching entrance of the Hokage Tower and proceed in, traversing the steps in silence. The secretary waves us through when we make it to the Hokage's floor, and the Anbu at the door steps dutifully aside. I shove the heavy wooden doors open, and the chaos within is revealed.

The soundproof doors did their job well, it seems. The thunderous shouting takes me completely off guard, even more so when I realize it's coming from just two people. One a tall, muscular man with an awful looking bowlcut, an admittedly awesome green leotard and orange leg band combo, and a pair of absolutely monstrous eyebrows bellowing indignantly at Kakashi, who's leaning against a wall serene as ever. The second, equally loud source, is what looks to be an identical copy of the jounin, sans vest, wrestling around on the floor with... Sasuke.

Wait.

"No, Uchiha-san!" The bizarre genin cries spiritedly, squirming out of Sasuke's grip. "You must secure my arms! Like this-" And then he flips my teammate over and slams his face into the plush carpeting, twisting his arms behind his back. "You see, now you'll only hurt yourself if you try to escape!"

Is he giving Sasuke advice?

I turn incredulous eyes on the only other two people in the room I don't know, who I assume to be the rest of this demented little genin team. The one closest to me stares right back at me with cool, pupilless eyes of the Hyuuga clan. He's wearing a pair of dark blue shorts and a high-collared beige shirt. His hair hangs in a long, womanly ponytail, in typical Hyuuga fashion.

The other is a girl, standing a few inches taller than me, with her head in her hands. Her light brown hair is pulled up into twin buns, and her ensemble consists of a pair of long dark green pants and a light pink top.

"What is he doing?" I ask. The girl lifts her head and flashes me an embarrassed smile.

"It's nothing, he's just-"

"Arch your back, Uchiha-san! Don't let me lock my legs!"

"Oh for the love of..." I sigh, striding forward. I reach down and catch the back of Sasuke's shirt as he comes rolling on top and yank him up and off the boisterous genin, who thankfully lets him go. "What have I told you about getting into fights with strangers?" I ask him sternly when he turns on me, snarling. I strike quick as lightning, smacking him upside the head. "Don't do it if you can't win!"

My words are sharp and mocking, but my palm speaks my true intention, and he calms after a few short puffs of air. That weird genin doesn't seem like he meant any harm, but I can see the fury burning in Sasuke's eyes. The sting can only be lessened so much by good intentions when you're getting coached by the guy happily kicking your ass.

I throw a short glare Kakashi's way, which he smoothly ignores.

"Well, now that we're all here, I believe introductions are in order," The old man calls happily from his desk. The large green shinobi breaks off from his tirade, bowing low.

"Hokage-sama, apologies on behalf of my team and myself. That was a most unprofessional display!"

"It's quite alright, Gai," The old man says graciously. "As I was saying, Team 7, this is Team 9. They graduated from the Academy a year ago, and are a heavy assault team just like yourselves. They'll be accompanying you on your first mission."

"Excuse me?" I ask. Old man Hokage raises a single gray brow.

"Your sensei didn't tell you? There is a procedure that all rookie and veteran genin teams must follow for their first few missions. I like to call it the Shinobi Sibling program. Its purpose is to provide the rookie genin with a safety net of sorts while they take their first steps into the shinobi world. It also serves the bonus purpose of allowing the veteran genin to assume some beginning leadership roles in preparation for their ascension to chunin."

"Why can't we take an easier mission instead?" Sasuke asks, glaring coldly at the leotard-wearing genin and the Hyuuga as well, for whatever reason.

"I'm afraid there's no such thing as an easy mission, Sasuke," he says. "If you're caught and detained in an infiltration and reconnaissance mission, the fact that you're looking for a list of simple smuggled items instead of the plans to a coup d'etat will not save you. If you find yourself caught in the crossfire of a demolition mission, the relatively small scale of the building coming down on your head won't matter. And if your sensei were to misstep in a strike against a group of bandits, they would treat you no kinder than a high-ranking shinobi." He smiles thinly. "They'd likely treat you worse."

Sasuke nods sullenly, subsiding.

"It is only until we can be certain of your abilities," old man Hokage says sympathetically. "It will be over before you know it. And who knows? Perhaps you and Lee will look back on this in a few days and laugh about it."

"Indeed!" Said genin pipes up, flashing pearly white teeth at us. I hold back a snort, but just barely. Sasuke isn't normally one to hold grudges, but when he does he not even a woman scorned can match up to him.

I'll have to remember that name, though. Lee. Where have I heard that before?

The old man coughs, shuffling through some papers on his desk before procuring a scroll sealed with the official symbol of Konoha, dyed a deep red around the edges. "If that's settled, let me brief you all on your mission..."


	5. Chapter 5

"Oh hell yes!" I crow when we emerge out of the Hokage Tower, holding the crimson-lined mission scroll tightly in my hand, having graciously offered to keep it for the night. "Can you believe this?" I ask, nudging Sakura with an elbow. "Our first mission and we get to smash a load of bandits and save a village all in one!" Sakura nods, smiling shakily.

I turn to babble at Sasuke, only to find him glaring at our mentor team. I roll my eyes, poking him in the side. His head whips around to fix me with a sharp look.

"What?"

"What happened before Sakura and I got to the old man's office?" I ask, quieter. Sasuke's gaze flickers over to Sakura for a moment, and he responds in an equally low voice.

"The Hyuuga ran his mouth and the green one blindsided me before I could knock him out," he says. The anger is still there, simmering just below the surface of his stony facade. What in the world could have ticked him off so badly in just a few-

I wince. "Uchiha talk?" Sasuke grunts in the affirmative.

It's never been a secret that the Hyuuga and the Uchiha clans hate each other's guts. They're hate-hate relationship has spanned back to the dawning days of Konoha itself, and only grown larger and worse smelling since then. The Uchiha were technically here first, but not by too much. Besides them the Hyuuga are the oldest clan in Konoha, not counting Senju Tsunade. So as the two oldest clans in the village, who _just so happen_to each contain stupidly powerful kekkai genkai, which just so happen to both be doujutsu, it's a given that a little bit of a rivalry would spring up.

Too bad that on top of being the oldest and arguably most powerful clans in the village, they're also the biggest assholes. So instead of forming a friendly connection like the Yamanaka, Nara, and Akimichi have going on, they became bitter and near outright hostile enemies. Also too bad that Sasuke hates even talking about his clan. And if that long-haired fruit is as stuck up as some of the other Hyuuga I've had the displeasure of meeting, he probably pushed the ribbing far past Sasuke's admittedly low level of tolerance.

"You wanna corner him during the mission and strangle him with his hair?" I ask. Sasuke snorts.

"Idiot."

"So who's up for some barbecue on me?" I ask loudly, coming to an abrupt stop. Sasuke doesn't even grace my offer with a response, just veers off towards a shortcut to our favorite barbecue joint. "Coming, Sakura?"

My teammate fidgets. "I should really get my things together for tomorrow," she says nervously.

I wave a hand. "Nonsense. The sun isn't even gone yet. Besides, who can resist a free meal?"

"Not me!" Kakashi declares, appearing in front of us in a cloud of smoke. My eyes narrow.

"Sorry, genin only," I say. "Team building experience, you know?" Kakashi places a hand over his heart, closing his eye in mock pain, making a little "oof" sound.

"So are you coming, Sakura?" I ask, ignoring his theatrics. The pink-haired girl bites her lip, one hand coming to rest on her stomach.

"I suppose..." She slowly agrees. I grin, hooking a thumb over my shoulder in the direction Sasuke went.

"Let's go, then."

"Don't forget to bring your scrolls, Naruto!" Kakashi calls after us."Sakura and Sasuke will be perfecting their tree walking on the trip back." I scowl. Touche, Hatake.

By the time we make it to Tanaka's the moon is beginning its ascent, bathing the village in an eerie glow where there are no paper lamps to illuminate things. The barbecue itself is nearly full, and I quickly slip between the various different tables before slipping into the corner booth Sasuke has snagged. Sakura moves in gingerly.

"Your bruises still bothering you?" I ask.

"Yeah," she replies quietly. Man, how bad did Kakashi beat her? That salve usually fixes me up right away.

A harried waitress stops by our table to take Sakura's and my order and is off a moment later in a swirl of dirty white cloth. I lean back in the comfy booth and slap the mission scroll down on the round table, picking the already broken seal off and unraveling it. The mission summary is laid out in bold, eye catching text, detailing the village we're being sent to liberate from the bandits and stray nukenin just off the border of Kusa. The horde itself isn't too special. Only a handful of its members are above C-rank. Pretty routine mission, in all honesty.

For a jounin.

"I can't say I dig the whole Shinobi Sibling thing," I begin happily. "But I'll put up with it any day of the week if it nets me missions like these!" Sasuke smirks at that, but Sakura just seems to sink into the booth. "Sakura?" I ask, cocking my head. She shakes her head.

"It's nothing," she says. "I just..."

"You're nervous," Sasuke states matter of factly.

"What's there to be nervous about?" I ask. "We're the best damn students the Academy has to offer, and we've got a veteran team to back us up on top of that." I pause. "Even if they are jerks."

"It's not that," she says quickly, lowering her eyes. "I'm just worried... that I might not pull my weight."

"You're what?" I ask disbelievingly. "You massacred those tigers during the genin test for us. What makes you think you won't pull your weight?"

"That was a special circumstance." She sighs. "I only have that one barrier seal right now, and it only stops physical attacks. If someone were to hit it with a chakra-enhanced sneeze it would shatter. It doesn't even have a _bottom_."

"Then we'll just have to leave all the bandits to you, then, won't we?" I retort.

"You don't even need the barrier seal," Sasuke speaks up. "Just keep up a steady chain of _Kawarimi_and pelt the enemy with some of those exploding tags you coated the inside of it with." He hooks a thumb at me. "That's more than Naruto can do with his Breeze Fist."

"I told you to stop calling it that, Uchiha," I growl.

The waitress stops by with our drinks and a quick promise that our food will be out in a moment, and thank you so much for being patient. I break off my stare down with Sasuke to grab my milk and take a long swig. Oh but does that taste good. My stomach contracts painfully, demanding more, and I hurry to oblige it, gulping the whole cup down in one go.

"Anyway," I say, "What are you guys going to bring tomorrow, you think? I've already got the basic stuff in mind, like a tent and some clothes, but are we thinking heavy or light weaponry? I want to make sure I have enough room for my rations when it's all said and done."

"And your scrolls," Sakura helpfully reminds me. Thank you Sakura.

"I'll be packing all of my weapons," Sasuke says smugly. "In a sealing scroll."

Ah, right. Chakra defect.

"Yeah, well. Fuck you too," I retort sourly.

The rest of the meal passes with small talk and tons upon tons of roasted beef. Soon enough I'm stumbling out of the restaurant clutching a blissfully full stomach. Sakura slips off with a hurried thanks and I start trudging towards my apartment. Sasuke walks beside me, a pensive expression on his face.

"What's going on now?" I ask. His brow furrows.

"Itachi just got back from another S-rank mission," he admits.

"So another night of fatherly encouragement?" I ask dryly. He nods. "Well, if you're good with waking up extra early to pack your crap, I guess you can dent my couch for tonight."

"Thanks."

"Don't mention it."

Sasuke wastes no time collapsing on my comfy old couch when we walk into my apartment, the day's training and the beefy dinner knocking him out as soon as he hits the cushion. I stumble into my room, grab one of the thinner blankets off my mound, and cross back out to toss it over him. Then I set about my nightly routine, discarding all my clothes except for my boxers in the corner of my room with the rest of their kind, getting my teeth brushed, and my kunai and shuriken cleaned up. Then I set to packing.

I end up going with my little collapsable tent, three sets of orange pants and black t-shirts and boxers. I throw in ten shuriken, kunai, and senbon respectively- though I never seem to use senbon these days... I eye the little pack of throwing needles sitting innocently in my backpack, taking up space.

Eh, might as well take 'em anyway. Giving a little shrug, I shove my scrolls on chakra shape manipulation in along with a little metal case filled with bandages and water purification tablets and the like. Not quite a first aid kit, but close enough. I take a quick survey of my room, double check my bag, and zip it up.

Then I slip back into the bathroom, pop a certain tile free, and grab the strongbox underneath. As I slump back onto my bed and crack the scroll open, I glance at the glass door leading to my tiny balcony. Faint shadows cast by the moon are all I see. I should really go to bed soon. Dawn isn't far off, and the western gate will be waiting.

_When shaping one's chakra for the Heavenly Chakra Chains, it is important to remember..._

* * *

"Wake up!"

Light presses against my closed eyelids and the bed shakes with the force of the pillow slamming into my head. I moan, curling up into a ball, clutching my blankets tightly around me. The cool, smooth texture of my scroll presses up against my cheek. It promptly rolls off the bed in a clatter of noise after a second smash to my head.

"Go get your stuff, dick," I mumble into my pillow. Stupid Uchiha waking me up when I've already packed my stuff.

"I already did," he says, annoyed. "I even told you before I left." Really? I stumble fuzzily through my most recent memories, but come up with some blurry words on paper and not much else.

"What time is it?" I ask my pillow.

"Five minutes until we need to be at the gate."

My eyes snap open.

The next three minutes consist of diving into a freezing cold shower, spending far too little time rinsing shampoo from my hair, hopping into a pair of dirty orange pants in the direction of thefront door, and tackling Sasuke out of said door. From there I throw my chakra at my back and explode up onto a roof and across Konoha while Sasuke cheats and disappears in a _shunshin_.

"I'm late, I'm late, I'm so late," I chant to myself, hopping up onto a balcony and then off onto the roof above it, pushing harder and harder on my chakra. I nearly cry in relief when I see the end of the waves of residential rooftops, and push for the final stretch.

"I'm here!" I shout, leaping into open air and abruptly yanking back on my chakra, slowing my descent and allowing me to land in a skidding crouch. Sakura watches me in bemusement as I shake the dirt and pebbles off of my thoroughly scraped hands, and the Hyuuga genin sneers at me from his spot amongst his teammates.

"Most impressive, shinobi-san!" Lee says, appearing in front of me like spandex magic. "A truly dynamic entry!" I take a slow step back.

"Thanks," I reply. A thought occurs to me, and I stick out a hand, if reluctantly. "I'm, uh, Naruto, by the way." Lee beams, gripping it tightly in and shaking it vigorously.

"And I am Rock Lee. It's a pleasure meeting you, Naruto-san." He declares, releasing my aching hand. "I look forward to fighting alongside you during our mission."

"You too." I turn to Sakura. "Hey, have you seen Sasuke? He should have gotten here before me." Sakura shakes her head mutely. I hum pensively, reaching up to adjust a shoulder strap-

That isn't there.

"My backpack!" I wail, fisting my hands in my hair. My slippery, soapy hair. Fantastic. "I can't believe I forgot my freaking_ backpack_. Of all the damn things!"

"You're pretty stupid," Sasuke agrees. I whip around, and there's my backpack, hanging by a pale, slender finger. I splutter a question, but Sasuke cuts me off. "I doubled back to your apartment. Also, you left your front door unlocked." The girl on Lee's team snickers. I take the backpack with a muttered thanks and sling it over my shoulders, then proceed to slump over to the wall and resign myself to a shameful wait.

It turns out to be a short one, as Kakashi appears in front of us with his face in his little orange book a breath later, tendrils of chakra smoke drifting off him. Not a beat later a clamber from above signals Team 9's sensei arriving in an entry magnitudes more dynamic than mine, exploding off a roof and hitting the ground in a somersault, rolling once, twice, and standing up with a flourish. He grins wide and pearly, only to frown in dismay when he catches sight of his silver-haired peer.

"Alas, my eternal rival!" He cries. "You have bested me yet again! That means we are tied once more at 67."

"Bested him in what?" I ask curiously. Kakashi squints.

"You know, I don't recall."

"What your sensei means to say is that we were competing to see which was superior, his _shunshin_or my raw speed." Gai's quickly supplies. His head dips. "It seems I need to train harder."

Lee rushes forward, fists clenched. "I will train with you, Gai-sensei, so I too can defeat my rival!" The green jounin brightens at once.

"I expect nothing less of my student!"

"Did he just say he was racing against your _shunshin_?" I ask incredulously. The guy only got here a couple seconds after Kakashi!

"Looks like it," Kakashi replies, oblivious to my incomprehension.

"Hey, are you guys leaving the village or not?" A voice calls from the small wooden stall attached to the side of the wall. "If not, go away! It's too early for this shit!" Gai and Lee quiet mid-shout, the latter looking embarrassed and the former annoyed.

"That is hardly polite, shinobi-san," he reprimands, heading over to the stall, Lee and his teammates following faithfully behind. I look at my sensei, leaning against the wall beside me with his face in his book, lost to the world.

"Whatever," I mutter, moving after Team 9. The grumpy voice turns out to belong to a familiar looking chunin in his twenties, with droopy eyes and a bandana obscuring the top of his head. A mug of coffee is clutched tightly in one hand, a clipboard in the other. I squint at him, struggling to recall where and when I met him before.

"Alright, sign your name and rank here, along with the names of your genin. The rookie team you're buddying up with goes there, you'll need their jounin sensei to sign here, blah blah blah. You know the drill." He drawls, handing over a battered looking clipboard. He catches me staring and raises an eyebrow. "Enjoying the view, kid?"

"I remember you!" I snap my fingers, grinning. "You're the proctor that checked out my chakra for the admissions test." The chunin, Izumo, stares at me in confusion for a moment before realization washes over his features.

"Oh, Naruto! Yeah, I remember you too, kid. Hey, what happened with your chakra? Did Hokage-sama get you fixed up?"

My grin fades. "Nah, my chakra is still retarded," I say honestly.

"That sucks. Made it work anyway though, I see." He shoots me a thumbs up. "Good on you."

We exchange a few more pleasantries, Izumo complains about his partner, currently snoring away in a chair in the back corner of the stall, and soon enough Gai is finishing up the paperwork with yet another flourish, handing it back to the gate guard. He looks over the sheet. "Scroll?" Gai turns expectantly to me, and I sling my backpack off and dig through its contents, procuring the mission scroll and passing it over to Izumo. He doesn't even bother cracking it open, just runs a thumb over the Hokage's seal and grunts, handing it back to me. "Looks good. Now get out." He pauses, considering Gai's stern glare. "Please."

The boisterous jounin sighs. "And a good day to you too, chunin-san."

We proceed through the gates, Sakura and Sasuke joining me on either side, into the wilderness beyond Konoha. And promptly stop. I watch in bemusement as Gai and Lee do a complete one-eighty in attitude, suddenly all business. The Hyuuga prick and the girl... well, they never left business mode in the first place. The three veteran genin stand at attention, awaiting orders. I glance uncertainly between my own teammates, and straighten up my posture. Just a bit.

"My students," Gai says seriously. "From this moment on we will be travelling at a brisk pace towards the objective village. As this is your first joint mission with a less experienced team, I expect you to keep a constant guard up, and when we begin the mission I expect you to guide and protect them at all times. There can be no room for error. Understood?"

"Yes, Gai-sensei," they chorus. Gai nods sharply.

"Formation!" The three genin split off, forming a spear head formation. The Hyuuga genin takes point, Lee takes the right side, and the girl the left. "I will take point as well," Gai declares, stepping up beside his student.

"I guess that leaves me with the rear," Kakashi says, having somehow appeared right behind me with me being none the wiser.

"What about us?" Sasuke asks.

Kakashi rubs his chin thoughtfully. "Let's say a simple horizontal formation for now, Naruto and Sasuke on the left and right respectively, Sakura in the middle." The three of us stare at him, baffled at the serious answer. Kakashi claps his hands impatiently. "Come on now, you three. You're making me look bad!" He whines. And it's gone.

"Ready?" Gai's voice rings. I nod silently.

"Yes, Gai-sensei," Team 9 choruses again. Creepy.

"Then let us go!"

* * *

"Break for camp!" Kakashi calls. Never have I heard a more beautiful sound.

I stagger off the path we've been beating to death for the past twelve something hours, allowing my backpack to fall off of my aching shoulders and thump onto a nice enough looking patch of grass. I perform a bleary and admittedly pitiful sweep of the area and quickly choose a spot to go take a leak at. I nearly collapse against the tree I end up using I'm so beat.

I'm making my way back to my spot when I trip over something squishy on the ground, which turns out to be Sakura, who offers little more than a pained moan in response. I consider crawling the rest of the way to my backpack, but unfortunately it seems Sasuke has rubbed off on me and my pride forces me back on my feet.

Setting up my single tent is a painful experience, but at the end of it I feel loose enough to join Sasuke by the small fire he's started up on a grassless patch of earth. I slump into a cross-legged position and relish in the warmth of the chakra flames as night falls around us. Kakashi takes up a spot leaning against a nearby tree, happily reading, while Team 9 puts together their own camp and throws down some traps I spend a few seconds trying to commit to memory before giving up.

I fall back, cross my arms behind my head, and stare up at the emerging stars. The trees of Fire Country's forests, though a far cry from those in Konoha, stand tall, dark brown, and dense above us, chopping the night sky up into slivers. My eyes droop.

"Hey, Kakashi," I say, quietly for no other reason than I'm feeling far too lazy to raise my voice.

"Hm?"

"How far are we from the village?" I ask.

"Only a couple more hours from here, at the pace we kept today."

I yawn. That's something, at least. "Are we going to have a guard rotation tonight?"

Kakashi leans into view above me, shaking his head. "That's what Gai's team is for. I'll probably spend some time around here as well before I turn in. Besides, I don't think I can trust you to watch over me just yet." He says, his upside down eye crinkling into an upside down crescent. A stray voice in the back of my head insists that I've just been grievously insulted as a shinobi, but the much bigger, sleepier voice asserts that a lack of guard rotation can only mean good things for me.

"What's the plan for tomorrow?" I press, however. "Scout the place out? Send in a couple of us in to take down the big guys and open things up from the inside out?"

"Nope!" Kakashi says cheerfully. "If Hokage-sama wanted that to happen he'd have sent a scouting team or an infiltration specialist. We're just going to blow their door off their hinges and crush them under our feet."

"... Oh."

"Get some sleep, Naruto," Kakashi suggests, snapping his book closed and sitting down himself in front of the fire. Sitting up, I notice Team 9 and Sakura have disappeared into their tents. Gai is nowhere to be seen. Something occurs to me, and I glance over at Sasuke.

"Hey, you wouldn't happen to have a spare sleeping bag, would you?" I ask, as I asked him just about every single Academy training trip we ever went on. Sasuke sighs, but nonetheless reaches into his backpack and pulls out a scroll, taps a glowing blue finger to it, and throws me the navy blue sleeping back that appears from within. "Thanks."

This time I don't even bother with pride. Everyone I care about judging me is either asleep or gone, anyway. Why bother? I crawl over part the opening of my tent and slip through, unroll the sleeping bag with one flick of my wrists, and shimmy in. Warmth envelopes me, my eyes drift closed, and my last thought before sweet unconsciousness claims me is one I've thought a dozen times before.

The Uchiha may be jerks by and large, but they make a damn good sleeping bag.

* * *

_I'm standing in a ruin._

_ The sun bleeds crimson red light over the shattered village, shrouding half of it in shadow and illuminating the other in a bloody glow. It had been a magnificent village. The remains of tall, intricately built stone buildings and towers riddle the land. A long wooden bridge lays crushed and half submerged in the waters separating the two halves of the village. There isn't a single building to be found not covered in beautiful spiralling seals. Broken seals._

I'm shaking. Whether it's in anguish or fury or both I can't tell. My eyes sweep across the village, hoping to see a seal flicker and die and reveal that they'd managed to hide, that they were still alive. Something. I step carefully into the village. There's nothing left to break, a bitter voice in the back of my mind observes, but I'm careful nonetheless.

I walk through the street, desperately searching for a survivor amongst the corpses. I arrive at the edge of the outlying portion of the village with nothing to show for. I have never taken the bridge before, but even still the sight of it torn asunder nearly robs me of my senses for my rage. My search through the main half of the village is even less fruitful. I find twice as many corpses, and no survivors.

Finally, I find myself standing in front of the remains of the tallest building in the village. Even now, broken in two, it rises high above the rest of the ruin. I peer into each of the windows, and in each I see nothing but broken furniture and broken people. I collapse into a sitting position, shaking harder.

They're gone. They're all gone.

My last chance, and they killed them. I close my eyes, and for a moment I can feel a reassuring hand on my head, hear an old, wizened voice in my ear. Grief crashes against me harder than the tallest wave.

But anger wins out.

I lurch to my feet, snarling, and sprint north, across the waters separating the dead village from the rest of the world, until I can see nothing but endless blue on all sides. I sprint on and on and on, past the endless sea, into the land of boiling springs. I find them there, in the remains of another broken village, mocking and shouting and laughing.

They've ruined everything and they're laughing. They've forsaken themselves and all the rest of their kin, and they don't even care. I see red. My control, the control I've held where my brothers and sisters failed one by one, slips, writhes, snaps.

I descend upon the first of them, hear them scream, feel the metal slab carved with the likeness of two overlapping rocks shatter under the weight of my fury.

I grow angrier still. Crimson floods my vision.

Nothing.

I jerk awake, gasping and shivering, covered in a cold sweat. Thrashing out of the suffocating hold of my sleeping bag, I stumble out of my tent. Cool air kisses my skin as I rush past Sakura's tent into the forest, until I come upon the small stream I'd noticed while relieving myself. Falling to my knees, I dip my cupped hands into the icy water and splash my face over and over and over.

I'm still attempting to chase any remaining drowsiness from my eyes when Sasuke sits down next to me, regarding me with solemn, bloodshot eyes. I lean back, blinking the excess water out of my eyes, and shudder.

"Crimson dream?" Sasuke asks quietly. I nod.

It's been months since I've had what Sasuke has taken to calling the crimson dreams, and I haven't missed them. I remember every single one in terrible detail when I wake up, and they never fade. Every one is monstrously violent, and in the dreams I'm so furious I can't even string together a proper thought. It's frightening.

"Different," I say hoarsely. And it was.

_They've forsaken themselves..._

"How?" Sasuke presses.

"It started different. I was still angry, but I was sad, too. And I was thinking, but they weren't my thoughts, and they don't make any sense-" I exhale shakily. "There was a village. It had been destroyed by a bunch of shinobi. Iwa nin, I think. I don't know when, though. I don't know why." I clench my eyes tightly shut. "I felt it happen, Sasuke. I felt myself go insane under the weight of it all. I was so _angry_. It was unreal." He doesn't respond to that, probably because he doesn't know how. I can't say I blame him.

So we sit there, in the final hours of the night, silent. Sasuke contemplates the sky while I stare blindly at the clear waters of the softly murmuring stream. After a while, when I've regained a precious sliver of my composure, I try to connect tonight's crimson dream with all the others. They don't match up, of course. They never do.

The sun begins to rise. I watch its rays reflect off the stream, watch a myriad of shapes come to life, and wonder what it would look like in the bloody light of the sun from my dream. Shaking my head, I lurch to my feet. The cold finally hits me then, sending goosebumps prickling along my bare torso. I turn back to camp, Sasuke following silently behind me. I don't thank him. It wouldn't be enough.

I throw my t-shirt and sandals on, dismantle my tent, triple check my weapons, and finally sit down with a rations bar and wait.

The girl from Team 9 is the first to awake, midway through my third bar, emerging from her tent with a rations bar of her own held between her teeth while her fingers work at the buttons of her shirt. She doesn't dismantle her tent when she's finished eating, instead taking a large bite out of the bar and walking over to the tent beside hers. She reaches an arm in and heaves Lee out sleeping bag and all. The odd genin doesn't even twitch when she throws him down, just snores loudly.

"Looks like all that enthusiasm took its toll," I say wryly.

"You don't even know," she responds ruefully, wolfing down another bar and kicking her cocooned teammate sharply. "Wake up, you idiot!" Despite her best efforts, it's the Hyuuga that rises next, nodding shortly at the girl and sneering at Sasuke before turning to his tent. Lastly comes Sakura, rubbing at her eyes with one hand and fussing at her hair with the other.

Kakashi drops down from a tree, looking his usual pleasant self, and Gai soon follows, appearing at the edge of the forest with a couple rabbits in hand and a cheerful grin on his face. It isn't until the rabbits are all cooked and the delicious smell of them is wafting through the air that Lee wakes up, just in time to catch a sandaled foot to the face courtesy of his female teammate.

"Alright, here's the deal," Kakashi says while we tear into the freshly caught meat. "The objective is only a couple hours away from here at a brisk pace, so we're going to iron out the details now so we can jump right into the fun when we get there." He pulls a kunai from his weapons pouch and crouches in the middle of the dirt path we'd traveled by, gesturing for us to join him. Sasuke and Sakura take up a spot over each shoulder, and Team 9 follow suit after an encouraging nod from Gai.

"This is the village," Kakashi says, carving out a rough representation of the outer walls and a few houses in the dirt. Next he carves a jumbled mix of Ds, Cs, and a few Bs inside of the walls. "If our intel is correct, we can expect fourteen to sixteen bandits and rogues in all. Most will be D-ranked, a couple will be C-ranked, and three will be B-ranked." Then he draws two As. "These are their leaders, a couple of nukenin from Kiri. Gai and I will be taking care of them and the three Bs." He draws a K and a G outside of the walls along with two arrows heading into the village. The he scuffs out the letters and redraws them, the Ds and Cs firmly on one side of the village and the Bs and As on the other.

"We're going to separate the small fry from the annoyances for you, and take care of the latter ourselves." Next he draws an S and an L, an S and a T, and an N and an N, all in pairs side by side. "Sasuke and Lee are going to pair off as the heavy hitters of their respective teams, Sakura and Tenten as the long range strikers, and Naruto and Neji as the precision fighters."

"I'm sorry, what?" I blurt. "Did you just call me a precision fighter?"

"Relative to your teammates, of course." He smiles widely. "Don't worry, you'll always be a reckless idiot to me."

That one's going to cost you, Hatake. I fall silent under the weight of my comrades snickers and smirks, defeated for now. Kakashi gives me one last evil eye crinkle and turns back to his illustrations in the dirt.

"As I was saying, Sasuke and Lee are going to lead the opening assault on the bandits. Sakura and Tenten will provide support and hopefully break whatever ranks they manage to form entirely. From there, Naruto and Neji will come in to clean things up. Sound good?" I nod grudgingly along with everyone else, and Kakashi swipes his hand back and forth across the picture, obscuring it into nothingness.

"Then let's get started."


	6. Chapter 6

The village is bigger than I thought it would be. A lot bigger.

When I first read through the missions scroll I'd assumed it would be smaller than the residential district back in Konoha, maybe the focus of a lumber company or some such. In reality, it looks like an abandoned fortress more than anything else. Sprawling out several miles wide and surrounded by stone walls rising at least twenty feet high, decorated with dozens of miniature guard towers atop each corner and along the tops of the walls, it looks like someone tore it out of an Academy textbook.

"How did a few crappy bandits take this place?" I murmur, peering out from behind my bush. My partner rolls his eyes. Or I think he does, at least. Never can tell with those pale eyes.

"It was obviously abandoned years ago, if not decades," he says scornfully, though he keeps his voice equally quiet. "There are empty spaces peppering the walls where stones have fallen or been broken off, and the nearest tower is half-rotted. It was likely left behind after the Second Great Shinobi War, and some weakling farmers came along to repopulate it." I squint at the distant structure.

"I can't see any holes," I admit.

"Pity."

"Watch it, _Hyuuga_," I warn. Unfortunately, Sasuke and his easily pushable buttons have spoiled me, and the veteran genin only sneers at the use of his clan name. Silence reigns, and I spot a bandit appearing atop of the wall. It's probably unnecessary with a Byakugan user right next to me, but I watch him closely anyway. He makes a few lazy circuits about the wall, disappearing out of my sight for two or three minutes at a time and then reappearing on the other side of the wall, throwing his head back every so often to take a swig of whatever drink it is he has on him.

Suddenly, he halts and turns, staring right at my bush. My muscles coil tightly, my teeth clench, and the man watches. He reaches for his belt, and my breath freezes in my throat. A stream of piss arcs off the wall, shining in the light of the rising sun.

"Nice," I sigh, relaxing. I pull my hand back, allowing the leaves to snap back into place, and lean into the stiff foliage, studying my partner. He sits cross-legged just behind me, eyes wide open and seemingly staring off into space. The veins around them bulge grotesquely, shining dimly with chakra. If I'm honest with myself, he's probably perusing the selection of scrolls the bandits have locked away in chests deep inside the fortress instead of tracking any enemy traffic. And looking through my clothes.

Damn Hyuuga.

"So what's the deal with you and Sasuke?" I ask. He doesn't reply. Different question, then. "Why was he getting all down and dirty with your teammate in old man Hokage's office?"

Uh, wait. That didn't come out right at all.

"The Uchiha tried to attack me," Neji says coolly, ignoring my unfortunate innuendo. A little smirk curls his lips. "Lee educated him as to the skill gap between us."

"What's that supposed to mean?" I challenge.

"It means you're weak."

"We'll see who's weak when I beat your girly ass into the dirt," I growl.

He scoffs. "Big talk and nothing to back it up. A sure sign of a weakling."

"What is your problem?" I ask, gripping my hair in frustration. "What did you say to Sasuke to get him so angry? _Why_did you say it?" If possible, his face becomes even more stoic.

"I merely pointed out a few truths," he says softly. Dangerously. I lower my hands, watching him carefully. "He couldn't handle them." He turns his head sharply away. "Few can."

We lapse into a tense silence, while I chew on his words and he stares unblinkingly through our cover at the fortress. A few truths, huh? It really was just more clan nonsense, then. I scowl, leaning back into my bush. I swear, if I had a jutsu for every time I've seen the Uchiha and the Hyuuga being jerks to each other, I'd be the old man.

"They're approaching the wall." The words snap me from my musings instantly, and I scramble back into my given position. My partner untangles his legs, creeping forward. "They've gained the wall. Splitting off."

Something settles uncomfortably in my stomach, hot and heavy. I finger a shuriken in my pouch while my heartbeat slams against my chest.

"Contact," he reports. A moment later a fire dragon lunges up into the air from inside the fortress, arcing up with a thunderous roar and crashing back down. A monstrous crash echoes in my ears. "Lee is moving in."

"What about Sasuke?" I ask, alarmed.

"Him too," he admits grudgingly. Fucking Hyuuga.

I find myself with a kunai in my hand, flipping my grip back and forth, eyes wide with anticipation. My partner tenses.

"Tenten and your teammate have reached the northmost guard tower. They've established contact." He tenses, not moving a single muscle. "Now!"

I explode out of the bush like a wrathful Bijuu, any and all semblance of stealth literally gone with the wind as I push my chakra as hard as I can at my back. I fly down the road at the fortress, homing in on a gaping hole in the wall that wasn't there a minute ago. Neji pulls up beside me, the veins around his eyes standing even starker against his skin, and ghosts past me up and through the hole in the wall. I leap clean through it.

The abandoned stronghold is just as impressive on the inside as it is on the outside, filled with stout wooden huts pressed up against the village walls. The center of the village looks to have been converted from whatever it was in the past to a massive plot for farming, complete with gutted oxen corpses and shattered wooden plows strewn across the dirt. Sasuke and Lee are in the center of the ruined plots, locked into hand to hand with a hulking bandit swinging a warhammer and a smaller man sporting a slashed headband with a katana respectively.

There are already three bandits down for the count, two out cold in the plot and one lying on the ground just inside the wall with an oozing cut across his neck. The skin he'd been drinking from leaks a liquid of the same color, mingling with the blood. I turn away from the corpse, Iruka's lectures on the rules of shinobi rushing to the forefront of my thoughts.

_Rule 25, a shinobi must never show emotion. Always remember. Put them out of your mind if you must, shuffle them away for a later date, but do not let them control you._

Neji slips in between Lee and the nukenin and gets to poking, and I set my sights on the behemoth Sasuke is dancing around. I put on a burst of speed and soar over a rotting ox, right arm swinging out wide. The bandit notices me at the last second, but by then it's far too late.

"_Lariat_!"

This one doesn't trip.

My arm curls around his thick bull neck and is nearly yanked out of its socket. The bandit chokes, teeters, and falls on his back, dropping his warhammer and scrabbling at his neck while I back off and thank anything and everything that might be listening for chakra and momentum. Sasuke darts in and kicks him once, right in the temple, and he's out.

I point at the downed enemy, throwing a look Sasuke's way. "That's how you take a hit."

Sasuke rolls his eyes. "Maybe if you weren't coming at me with wrestling moves you'd hit me more often." He counters. My partner steps in before I can respond with something equally witty, a harsh expression on his face.

"Talk when the mission is over," he says acidly. He flicks his head towards one of the shacks where a bandit is stumbling out, fumbling with his pants and gripping the hilt of his sword in his teeth, and takes off.

I feel your pain, I mouth at my glaring Uchiha teammate, and turn and chase after the veteran genin. He's within arms reach before the moron of a warrior can even transfer his sword from his teeth to his hand, gracefully ducks a panicked haymaker, and jabs the man in his stomach and his chest in quick succession. The bandit collapses in a convulsing heap and my partner disappears into the building.

I stop just short of the door, perhaps my gut or perhaps straight paranoia prompting me to take a glimpse in through the small glass window on next to the door first. I see Neji, crouched in the signature Hyuuga Taijutsu stance, and a naked man holding an equally naked and sobbing woman up with a short blade pressed against her throat. My partner is saying something, but I can't hear it over the blood roaring in my ears. I duck back, breathing heavily and focusing on my clenched, shaking fists.

I glance around, see Sasuke and Lee taking on three more bandits on the other side of the fortress, and nothing else. All clear. Then I turn and scale the shack's walls, silent as a shadow. I pull myself up onto the roof, creep across its wooden surface to the cobble chimney, and ease into it. Stealth training don't fail me now. I slide down into the fireplace, and get an immediate eyeful of bare bandit ass. Then I get an earful of stupid bandit voice.

"And if you don't get the hell out of here right the fuck now, you stupid little shit, I'm going to open her up ear to ear and-"

I slam the ring of one of my standard kunai into his neck as hard as I can, and he collapses like a rotten tree in a hurricane. The clatter of his blade hitting the wood floor mingles with his desperate wheezing and the naked woman's sobbing. She collapses to her knees and I drop down beside her, placing a hand on her shoulder. It's horrifically bruised, along with most of the rest of her skin. What small amount that isn't is pale and fair. I'm reminded uncomfortably of Sakura.

"Hey," I say softly. She flinches away from my hand, shaking her brown haired head side to side. "You're going to be fine." I assure her, trying a different approach. "My team and I aren't going to let them touch you guys, you have my word as a shinobi." She only sobs harder.

"Leave her," Neji says, suddenly beside me. He reaches down and taps two fingers to the struggling bandit's forehead. He falls limp, mid weeze. "She'll be safer in here anyway. Gai-sensei can handle her when we're done."

"That makes sense," I agree reluctantly. I make sure to throw a blanket from the nearby cot over her shoulders before we leave, though, and drag the unconscious body out with us.

Sasuke and Lee are putting the finishing touches on the last bandit by the time I've deposited the man up face-first against the ass of a dead ox. The finishing blow on the bandit ends up coming from afar, however, in the form of a throwing axe of all things lodging itself in the ratty woman's head after cutting a path just past Lee's head. I find myself too incredulous to be revolted as I turn towards the tower.

"Are you serious!?" I shout. "You could have missed and taken your own teammate's head off! And who even uses throwing axes anyway?" Tenten appears in front of me in a cloud of smoke, swinging another axe around on her finger like some oversized kunai, a condescending smile on her face.

"Silly boy," she coos. "I never miss."

"I'm going to assist Gai-sensei," Neji announces suddenly, nodding once to Tenten and Lee, and turning and sprinting deeper into the maze of plots and buildings.

"A magnificent idea! I will join you, my rival!" Lee declares. He bows quickly and takes off in the same direction at breakneck speed.

"Well that's nice of them," Tenten says wryly. "I think I'm going to gather up the civilians, myself." She turns to holler at the guard tower. "Hey Sakura! You want to help me out?" Sakura appears in an identical cloud of chakra smoke next to her and nods shyly.

"And then there were two," I drawl as they trot away to the nearest shack. "So what do you think? Not bad for our first mission, eh?" I ask Sasuke as he makes a round of the open plot, gathering up his kunai and shuriken. He grunts.

"Oh come on," I say in exasperation. "Lighten up. We got to kick a few bandits around, rescued some civilians, and you got the bulk of the action! You didn't even get paired with the jerk." I slap him on the back in the middle of reaching for a kunai and send him stumbling.

"Anyway," I continue, skillfully ignoring his poisonous look. "Think of it this way: We're one step closer to not having to put up with him anymore. How many joint missions can they give us before we prove we're capable?" I wonderful thought occurs to me, and I grin. "And if you want to be really optimistic, you can say we're one step closer to becoming chunin and not having to put up with Kakashi!" I finish happily.

Sasuke pockets the last of his weapons, shaking his head. "I'll count this as a step when I've got the mission payment in my hands."

"Isn't that a pity," A deep voice drawls. I spin around with a startled shout, calling chakra to my hands, only to see a gray blur swooping in past my guard. The punch hits me like a freight train in the stomach, and I see stars.

I fly back, rolling across torn up ground and broken wood, and vomit my rations all over the dirt. Something whistles sharply in my ears, followed by a clanging of metal on metal. A shadow falls over me, which I decide is Sasuke after a few seconds fighting to see through the tears in my eyes.

"I hate to piss on your festival just when you thought you had it in the bag, but the fun's just starting, kids." The man says mockingly. I grit my teeth and stand, clutching my stomach, and step out from behind my teammate.

The man who sucker punched me stands in the gouge my feet tore up in the process of being sent flying, arms crossed over his chest. He's as tall as Kakashi, and even more muscular than Gai. Tattered gray cargos cover his legs and filthy gray bandages coil tightly around his biceps. A headband decorated with three clouds slashed through the middle shines from its place wrapped overtop the bandages on his right bicep. The ashen skin of his chest is bare except for a bulky, unzipped vest.

A chunin vest.

"Sasuke," I say lowly, fingers digging into the thin fabric of the shirt covering my stomach. "Go get Sakura and Tenten."

"Are you out of your mind?" Sasuke demands out of the corner of his mouth. "He just downed you in one hit."

"It was a sucker punch," I insist. "I can take him while you get them."

"That's stupid. Let's just take care of him ourselves."

"Four genin are better than one. And what if he's not alone?" I ask. Realization sparks in his eyes. "Exactly. Go."

I can see him about to protest, maybe tell me to go instead, but suddenly the nukenin from Kumo sighs dramatically and disappears in a flash of chakra, appearing in front of him. The chunin draws a fist back, crackling with white lightning, and sends a punch at Sasuke's face. Instinct shoves me forward, sends chakra screaming through my veins, and I slam an open palm strike into his side. Wind explodes from my skin, sending him skidding.

"Go!" I shout, pulling upon more chakra and relishing in the feel of it rising in my stomach, chasing the pain away. Sasuke nods curtly, vanishing in a _shunshin_. I relax into my taijutsu stance.

"Smart move," The nukenin allows, studying me with a bit more critically. "Too bad for him my buddy isn't going to be as easy as these weaklings were." He spits on a bandit riddled with senbon.

"You're one of the B-ranks," I guess. "Couldn't handle the jounin, then? Had to make do with the genin instead?" _An angry opponent is a reckless opponent_, Iruka lectures me. _And a reckless opponent is a dead opponent._

"Of course," he agrees. "I just got my rank, and I'll be damned if I'm going to let the Copy Cat take it away from me."

"Then why don't you run?"

He shrugs. "Because my superiors are probably going to kill your sensei eventually. I'm just making sure I don't get caught in any unnecessary crossfire, you know? Oh, and I'm waiting on my buddy while he plays with your little kunoichi friends." A vile grin creeps across his face. "He likes 'em young."

I explode forward, a kunai clutched in each hand, nearly spitting with rage. Electricity dances around the nukenin's biceps down to his hands, and with one hands he lashes out. I drift just outside of his reach, then dart in, lashing out at his vulnerable chest. He jerks back and slaps my hand away, and my arm goes numb.

Oh, awesome. I jump back, focusing on pushing chakra through my arm, praying for elemental superiority to come through for me. A moment later it does, when my arm erupts into a painfully tingling mess. It moves, though, and not a moment too soon. The chunin bears down upon me, hands clasped overhead in a hammerblow. I throw my hands out and blast him with chakra. The electricity on his arms flickers and dies, but he struggles through the wind and brings fists down on my head.

My knees give out underneath me, and it's all I can do to roll out of the way of the stomp that would have finished the job on my head. I see two of him rushing towards me, decide it doesn't really matter if one is a bunshin or a hallucination, and pick one and throw up a cross block in front of his strike. I block it solidly, but the impact drives me up to my ankles in the loose earth. I duck another hit and loose my kunai.

At point blank range I can't exactly miss, but in my dazed state I try my best. One lodges itself in the ultra thick fabric of his chunin vest and the other cuts a deep line through the bandages on his left bicep and goes flying off, leaving a pitiful cut to show for my efforts. He rushes forward and nails me in the jaw while I'm struggling to get out of the ground. Why is it always the head?

I stare fuzzily up at the cloudless blue sky, pondering the ringing in my ears. A scarred face and gray, close-cropped hair obscures my vision.

"That's a nice trick you've got with your wind," he says appreciatively. "But it's a far, far cry from-"

He pauses, cocking his head. The dull roar of rushing water drifts from deeper into the village, and soil made sticky with blood clings to my check when I turn my head to see its source. Three enormous water dragons crash through buildings and wash over plots, heading straight for us. My opponent hums bemusedly, flitting through the seals for the kawarimi. The ground shifts underneath me.

"Looks like it's drowning for you, kid. Sorry about that." He throws me a smirk, locking his hands into the serpent handseal.

And then a brown mastiff bigger than I am sporting a Konoha headband lunges up out of the dirt and tackles him, clamping its slobbering jaw down on his shoulder. The nukenin falls, howling curses, and I struggle to get back on my feet. I fail. The sound of the approaching water dragons grows deafening. I try again, and fail.

Another dog, this one smaller and sleeker with an identical headband, nudges at my shoulder. I stare blearily at it, and it shoves its head under my arm. I manage to gain my feet this time, and we todder away while the nukenin and the mastiff wrestle in the soil. I'm just beginning to achieve a steady gait when one of the dragons clips me.

The dog's jaw clamps down on my pant leg, and for a second holds, but then the orange fabric tears and I'm washed away with the suiton jutsu. The first thing that occurs to me is that it's freezing. During our training sessions Kakashi's water dragons and bullets and whips were always lukewarm, but this washes away the fuzziness in my head instantly in its chill. A pounding headache immediately takes its place, but it's a small price to pay for coherency.

Having come to my senses, I grasp blindly amidst the chaos of the jutsu, uncomfortably aware of what will happen if I don't stop myself soon. Splat, right against the wall.

I catch on something hard and smooth. It jerks, and I feel something connected to it pop and almost tear, but it holds. I duck my head, clutch whatever it is, and wait for the dragons to pass.

They finally do when my lungs are about to burst and my grip has slipped to three fingers, their pressure disappearing all at once from around me. I collapse onto something large and muscled and reeking. I consider the pointed white horn in my hand, and the snapped neck of the ox corpse.

"That was almost really painful," I grunt, pushing off the dead beast. Another jutsu shakes the earth beneath my feet, and I whirl around in time to see a shinobi dressed in browns and yellows go rocketing past me towards and through the stone wall of the fortress. Ouch.

"Stupid mutt!" A furious voice roars. "_Electro Choke_!"

A particularly large mound of mud suddenly comes alive with electric white chakra, and I cringe at the piercing yelp that follows. Something pops, and chakra smoke drifts up from the mound. Then it shifts, and the Kumo nukenin staggers up, the arm sporting his headband covered in mud and scarlet blood from the wound in his shoulder. He's covered head to toe in smaller scratches, and his pants have been torn near to shreds. He locks wrathful green eyes with me.

"It's a shame," he growls, stalking forward. "I was going to give you a chance, see if you could hold on through the water." He bears his teeth in a nasty smile. "Now, though. I think I'm mad enough just to kill you."

He hurtles forward, dodging the shuriken I send whistling towards him with ease and making yet another bid for my face. I jerk to the side, feel my cheek tingle painfully as the screeching lightning chakra brushes past it, and nail him in the gut. He slides back a step, but is otherwise unharmed. I press for an opening, calling wind to my fingertips and slamming into his guard. I dip into my weapons pouch, pull out a double ended kunai, and stab it forward.

He catches my wrist and squeezes it painfully. Electricity dances around his bicep, and I hurriedly channel chakra down my own arm. The two elements clash briefly, and his subsides. He scowls. "Gotta admit," he says, taking a step forward. I yank on my arm in vain, try to jab at his throat, but he catches that hand in his own as well. "That wind is getting _really_annoying." Another step.

I push harder, harder, and harder still, but it's no use. I can't get any tractions in the muck of the field. My sandals begin to sink into the ground again. Step, step, step. His hand tightens around my wrist.

"Naruto! Lightning Release: Lightning Beast!" And just like that he lets me go, leaping back with a panicked shout. A breath later a hound as big as the mastiff made of crackling blue electricity flashes through the spot he'd just been, crashing into the mud and dissipating. I trace the rapidly deteriorating strand of chakra connected to the beast back to Kakashi, perched atop a guard tower.

"What do you think you're doing?" He shouts. "You can't go head to head in Taijutsu with someone like that all by yourself!"

"Well what am I supposed to do?" I holler back, just before a veritable hail of fireballs come hurtling from further down the wall towards the jounin. He drops off the wall, pressing his hands into the ground as soon as he lands and raising a slab of damp earth to absorb an incoming deluge of kunai and shuriken.

"Use your wind. Dodge!" He says. Then he disappears in a swirl of leaves.

"What'd I tell you?" The chunin laughs, climbing to his feet. "Poor Copy Cat can't even take a few seconds to help his student out." He practically saunters over to me, his savage grin enhanced by the electricity surrounding him. "He's going to die, that green freak is going to die, your kunoichi are going to die-" He breaks off, flashing forward. "But you're gonna die first!"

He swings, and I slide back a step. His fist goes crackling past. He pivots, throwing roundhouse kick at my face. I duck. He makes for an uppercut at my gut, but I blow it to the side with a burst of wind. He scowls.

"Cute. Let's see how long you can keep that up," he says, lunging.

I dance around the field, jump and ducking and redirecting with my chakra where I can, looking for an opening to exploit, hoping for reinforcements to come. He rips a slab of wood from a wrecked plow and swings it at me. I stop on a dime and throw my weight into a punch, shattering the slab and spinning around him when he tries to grab me. He slides into a crouch and sweeps at my feet, but instead of jumping to avoid it I throw out my hands and buffet him with wind, knocking him off balance.

With every dodged punch his eyebrows furrow deeper. After every redirected kick his jaw clenches a little tighter. And every time I smother his element with my own, his breath grows a little more ragged. Finally he stops his pursuit, glaring hatefully at me.

"I bet you think you're real slick," he snarls. "Think you've got me all figured out. You don't, though, and you're not. You're dead!" His hands flash through handseals. I hurriedly grab a ring of shuriken from my pouch and let loose, only for them to hit the corpse of one of the bandits. Kawarimi. I whirl around, but the nukenin is already locking his hands into the horse seal.

"_Electro Blitz_!" Blue chakra flares around him and he before I can do anything he slams into me, sending me sprawling. I claw my way to my feet, fighting through the numbness left behind by his body slam. His chakra flares again. "_Electro Blitz_!" I'm diving away before the first syllable is out of his mouth, but he still clips me, snapping my arm back. I manage to roll up into a crouch, rubbing forcefully at my stinging appendage. He passes at me again, knocking me senseless.

He turns to me, one hand clenched into a fist, the other held in a half horse seal. "Like that?" He taunts. "Lifted the idea from the Raikage himself!" He flashes forward again, but this time I'm prepared. I juke desperately to the right, watch him shoot by. My eyes narrow. He makes a few more passes, but now I know his game, and I dodge every one. I smile. I've found the chink.

"Must be frustrating, having to move in a straight line," I call tauntingly after yet another failed attempt. "I bet the Raikage doesn't have to do that." It's a pretty pitiful attempt at riling him up, all things considered, but it does the trick anyway.

"You brat!" I shift to the side again as he flashes forward, but this time he stops just short of me. He belts out three more seals, finishing once more with the horse seal. "_Electro Grapple_." His hands pull apart, still held in half horse seals, and in the space between them a strand of electricity forms, grows taught and snaps. The writhing strands of chakra wrap around his hands, growing, growing, until two half horse seals are floating in front of his hands, connected to them by razor thin strands of chakra. His hands clench into fists, and the two electric hands do the same.

You have got to be kidding me.

"My sensei always used to tell me that a few inches of reach in close combat can be the difference between dodging a punch and getting dropped like a sack of bricks." He smirks darkly. "What do you think?"

He closes the distance between us. The first swipe I leap back from. The second I bat aside after coating my arm in wind, but the electric fist punches right through my chakra film and my arm seizes, sending lances of pain arching up into my shoulder. I lurch away, hissing through clenched teeth as I shove more and more chakra through my appendage. This time, however, the trick doesn't work and my arm stays unresponsive.

"Looks like your wind didn't cut it that time," the nukenin observes gleefully. "Getting tired?"

"Getting tired of listening to your voice," I say, but the strain in my own gives me away. He presses his advantage enthusiastically, aiming again and again for my useable arm and attempting to grab hold of me via my bum one whenever it comes flapping within reach. Finally I don't put enough distance between us with my dancing and he punches me in the gut, electric fist and all.

I fall for the hundredth time, try to wrap my arms around my stomach, and realize that I can't move my arms. I pull and pull and pull on what's left of my chakra, desperately trying to counter the raiton jutsu wreaking havoc on my muscles, and nearly scream at the feel of a thousand senbon being shoved into my arms and legs and stomach over and over.

"I have to admit, kid," My opponents says. "That wasn't half bad. Especially for your first mission. Not bad at all." A sizzling sound drifts through the air. "In fact, I'd go so far as to say you've earned an honorable death." He chuckles. "No need to thank me."

I redouble my efforts to stand, and the sharp pain in my stomach intensifies. I see more than feel one arm, the one scorched by the nukenin's jutsu, twitch, but not quite rise. Damn it, _move_. I push harder, somehow shift my other hand underneath me. I turn my head, hock, and spit out a glob of vomit-blood.

"See you in hell," he jeers. Too soon. I still can't move. It's too_ soon_. "_Electro_-!" He stops abruptly. I hear a muffled thump, a cry of pain.

A snarl reaches my ears as I struggle up onto my hands and knees, and when I lift my head I see the dog that had tried to pull me away from Kakashi's water dragons wrestling with the nukenin, jaw clamped over the bloody wound in his shoulder that the mastiff had left behind. I force myself to one knee. Electricity dances along the nukenin's biceps, and he reaches around and wraps a muscled arm around the dog's neck. I stagger to my feet.

A sickening crunch and a pained yelp both erupt from the dog, and it disappears in a cloud of smoke. The nukenin slumps, panting heavily and reeling from the surprise attack. Blood flows faster and stronger from his shoulder, covering his chest and arm in a dark red sheet and staining his chunin vest. He sways woozily, clutching his head.

There's a window if I ever saw one.

My feet move arduously forward, one after the other, slowly at first. As I wrest the last of my chakra free, however, I move into a slow jog. The nukenin looks up, locks eyes with me. Rage twists his features into something less than human.

"You think you can beat me!? You think you and your sensei's stupid dogs can win? I'll kill you!" He slaps his hands together, forming clumsy handseals. I pick up speed, feeling the stabbing pain in my arms and legs give way to a mere uncomfortable ache. The distance between us closes to twenty feet. Ten feet. The nukenin from Kumo's flits through his last seal and clasps his hands together. A screeching blade springs to life between them.

I reach into my weapons pouch and pull out my last kunai. Five feet. He raises the blade above his head. My vision narrows down to his bared throat. One shot.

My foot slips.

The mud slides my right foot sharply to the side, and I find myself too close to recoverd. It's too late to dart in and stab him. I don't have time to think as he swings down. I grab hold of all my chakra, digging past the clenching pain and seeming emptiness, and twist. Wind explodes around me, slamming into my side and sending me spinning. I spin once, twice, three times. A shining blue blur appears in my vision.

"_Electro Axe_!"

I lunge upward. The jutsu hits the cyclone of wind surrounding me like a raging Bijuu, and almost stops me in my tracks. Almost.

The wind roars in my ears, and I follow through.

Stray sparks of electricity dribble feebly from his limp hands, mingling with the moaning remnants of my chakra. The nukenin stares at me with wide, disbelieving eyes. He opens his mouth, but only blood comes out of it. I let go of my kunai, and he falls back, sinking into the mud with a squelch. Bright crimson blood from his throat and his shoulder pool together, staining the already ruined soil.

I stand there and watch it all drain out of him. The color from his cheeks, the blood from his body, the life from his eyes. When he's gone, I reach down and slide his eyelids shut. Why, I can't say.

A door crashes open, and I see Sasuke storm out of it dragging a skeleton of a teenager along with him by the hair. I watch as the teen begs and pleads and sobs in a high, reedy voice. I watch as Sasuke stops in a particularly muddy patch of soil and wraps a hand around the back of the teen's throat. And I watch as he shoves the rogue shinobi's face into the mud and holds it there, until he stops thrashing and his body goes limp.

"Naruto?" Someone calls, far away. "Naruto?" They call again, equally distant. But when I turn I Sakura is right there. Her breath hitches. "What happened?" She asks.

"He shocked me," I croak. It hurts to talk, I realize. "A lot." I wince, placing a hand on my stomach. The stabbing pain is still there, and it's growing worse. "My stomach hurts," I mumble.

"I-I'll go get Kakashi-sensei," she says hurriedly. "Just wait here. He-He'll know what to do." And just like that she takes off. I consider following her, despite her words, but after the first step I decide it's far too much effort. Instead I focus on Sasuke, who's staring right back at me with something like concern in his eye.

"Hey, Sasuke." I say hoarsely. He raises an eyebrow. "Told you I could take him." He snorts, opening his mouth to retort, and freezes. His eyes fly open wide, fixing on something over my shoulder.

"Naruto!"

A hand grips the collar of my shirt, cold leather brushes against the back of my neck, and I'm yanked off my feet. An orange, swirling mask and a crimson red eye fill my vision, and then my world is swallowed up in darkness.


	7. Chapter 7

I inhale sharply and my whole body tenses up against the will of my screaming muscles, but the pain I'm expecting never comes. Instead, I hear the sound of displaced air around me and feel the hand holding onto my collar, and nothing I else. I reach up and strain against the hand on my shirt, but it doesn't budge. Maybe I could have budged a few fingers and wiggled free if I wasn't such a wreck.

And then what would I have done? My gaze flickers wildly, side to side, up and down, everywhere. Nothing but black. Worst case scenario, whatever it is that's making me slide through the ground like it isn't even there would disappear and I'd suffocate in the ground. Best case scenario... uh.

Suddenly my senses come rushing back to me all at once. The sound of sandaled feet landing lightly on stone, the smell of damp earth, a chill on my skin. It all rushes back to me in a single disorienting instant, and I don't even have a chance of recovering in time when my captor throws me forward. My head slams into something solid, and I swear to god if this doesn't stop soon I'm investing in a helmet. I moan, the sound nearly overtaken by the persistent ringing in my ears and the nauseating taste of my own blood flooding my mouth.

A moment later a light comes alive, glowing blue and fierce and flickering like a flame over the sleek leather of my captor's gloved hand, clearly illuminating the bizarre orange mask covering their whole face aside from the crimson eye and the pitch black cloak covering the rest of thei body. Through the pain and confusion, something in the back of my mind starts screaming at me. _Danger_.

Chakra isn't supposed to be that bright. Pure chakra rarely makes it to a dim glow all by itself. That means one of two things. Either they're about to use a jutsu on me, or they're just that strong.

"Hello Naruto-kun," A smooth, male voice says. It reminds me of the old man, weirdly enough. All calm and confidence. "You have my apologies. Hurting children has never sat well with me, but this time it was necessary."

How? I try to ask, but only a pained gurgle makes the trip. Then he answers my question anyway, kneeling down beside me and dipping a finger in the little puddle of blood formed by the little stream trickling down my cheek. I try and jerk to the side, kick him in the balls, something. But my body is just too beat, and some frantic little twitches are all I get while he finger-paints on my forehead with my blood. A little shock erupts from his hand a few seconds later, and even twitching is taken out of the equation as my arms and legs lock, refusing to respond to my commands.

"There we go," he says, satisfied, and rocks back on his heels.

"What-?" I start, thankfully still in control of my tongue, but stop short as the answer hits me. "You sealed me," I breath. The mask bobs.

"Indeed. Another necessary measure, I'm afraid." Then he reaches out with his non-shiny hand and rips my shirt off with one short jerk, revealing my bruised stomach in all its glory. He places a hand on my navel, and another little shock runs through me. The seal comes swirling into being and my captor inhales sharply, his single eyes widening. He traces a finger over it, sending a couple more shocks of chakra through my skin at seemingly random intervals.

"There it is," he murmurs, almost disbelievingly. His finger spirals inward with the seal. "You can not possibly know how long I've been looking for you, Naruto-kun."

"I'd like to say I feel the same way," I say through grit teeth. He isn't putting any particular force on my stomach with his prodding, but it _hurts_. The man doesn't respond, but his eye crinkles in a gesture disturbingly similar to Kakashi. "You could at least tell me your name. Or buy me dinner first. 'S only fair," I mutter sourly.

The mask cocks, and the eye rises from my stomach to stare at me, the amusement gone. A single bloody orb stares unreadably at me. I don't even breath.

"Hirakazu," He finally says, turning back to my stomach and resuming his poking. "You can call me Kazu, though," he adds after a thoughtful silence.

Uh, okay then.

"So... is there any reason you didn't just, you know, ask to see my seal?" I ask, albeit hesitantly. Weird mask and creepy eye aside, I'm not getting an overly hostile vibe from the guy. He probably won't kill me for asking a few questions. Probably.

"It would have been far too complicated," he replies immediately. "I'm not affiliated with Konoha, and you were already injured. That teammate of yours wouldn't have let me within three feet of you." Finally he leans back again, apparently satisfied. "It's much easier this way."

"You're done, then? You got what you wanted?" I press. Some small part of me recognizes that reasonable explanation or not, I've still been kidnapped, and that my life is currently resting in the hands of a man that I don't know who has no affiliated with Konoha or presumably any of its allies. I should probably be thinking of some way to signal Kakashi and Gai, or break free of the restrictive seal on my forehead, or both. At the very least I should be scared half to death.

I'm not doing or feeling any of those things, though. I'm just tired, and if a look at my stomach is what's needed to get me back to the surface, and later a nice warm tent, then I say poke away.

"For now," Kazu agrees, not at all ominously.

"Could you be a little less violent about it next time, at least?"

He chuckles, placing the hand shrouded in chakra on his knee and pushing himself up. "I think I can try."

"Thanks." I fall silent, struggling to formulate the million dollar question in my head in such a way that might net me an answer, but Kazu beats me to the punch yet again.

"You want to know why I was looking for your seal," he states matter-of-factly. I nod mutely. "I don't suppose you know what it's for?" I shake my head no. He sighs. "Then I'm afraid most of what I'm doing would go right over your head."

"Try me," I challenge. His eye crinkles.

"Maybe some other time. For now, though, I suppose I can tell you this much." He raises a gloved hand, touches his fingertips to the area of the mask where I imagine his other eye might be, and his voice becomes solemn. "I seek peace."

"... For who?" I ask after a few seconds of expectant silence.

His hand falls back to his side, and he stares intently at me. "For everyone, of course."

And suddenly I feel very, very small. I'm not exactly the best judge of character, especially with my head smashed half to hell, but the man in front of me doesn't seem the type to make empty boasts. Or have unreachable goals. I take a moment to process his statement, consider the implications of it. And wonder just what the hell is with the seal on my stomach.

"Why?" It's the first thing that jumps to mind. Kazu cocks his head, and for a while it's just me, some dirt, and a few rocks as he considers my question.

"Why did you become a shinobi?" He finally retorts. I blink.

"Because. I, uh." Because why? "I..." I spent five years busting my ass to be one. There has to be a reason, right? "I..." The old man became a shinobi to protect his home. I have to be forgetting something. Some crucial bit of motivation. It can't have just been 'shinobi are cool', can it? Am I really that shallow?

"I don't know." For some reason I can't quite explain, those three words hurt to say. A lot.

"Figure it out," Kazu suggests. "And you might find that you know my reasons as well."

I groan in frustration, clenching my eyes shut. "This day sucks." Kazu chuckles again, the jerk. We lapse into silence, and I find that the ringing in my ears is still going strong as it rushes forward to overtake the stillness of the little underground cave. Kazu stares at his shining hand, apparently deep in thought, and I try to ignore the pain in my stomach and the questions pounding in my head.

I fail, of course.

"How?" My voice is quiet, but in such a small space it doesn't really need to carry too far. Kazu focuses an eye on me, which I take as a go-ahead. "How are you going to bring peace to everyone? Is it even possible?" For some reason, be it the rock hard determination in his voice or the blood rapidly leaking from my head, I don't think there isn't a chance he could do it. But it doesn't make the idea any less alien to me. War and fighting and killing has been at the center of my life since, well, ever.

What would all the thousands of shinobi across the board do with peace? What would fill the gap?

"It is," Kazu says surely. "Anything is possible, with the means and the drive. Anything."

"But how?" I press. "You're just one person. You're not even a shinobi of a hidden village." It's a guess more than anything else. He's not wearing a headband, but that doesn't really mean anything in the long run. He could just be wearing it somewhere I can't see, or he may have stowed it before coming to nab me. It would be the smart thing to do.

But it turns out that I'm right regardless when his mask bobs. "It's true that I'm not affiliated with any village in particular," he agrees. "But I'm far from alone, and I think you'll find that quantity isn't always what makes the difference."

He shakes his head suddenly. "Too much. That was too much," he murmurs to himself in a scolding tone. My eyes widen as the light around his hand flickers out, and the sound of sandals on stone scrape towards me.

"Wait a second!" I say in alarm, struggling uselessly against Kazu's seal's hold on me. "Let's not do anything rash, yeah? We can work something out. I'm a reasonable guy, you seem like a reasonable guy-"

"Calm down, Naruto-kun," he says laughingly. "I'm not going to kill you. I just need to make sure you don't make things more complicated than they have to be."

His bright red eye appears above me, not a foot away, and suddenly I notice the three black tomoe encircling the pupil. My mind grinds to a halt.

That's impossible. There are no rogue Uchiha. That's _impossible_.

And then as if that weren't enough, the other eye opens up. It's different than its counterpart, though. Where the other is a sharp red, this one is a light, glowing purple. Where the other has a normal pupil surrounded by tomoe, this one is one big swirl, with no pupil or sclera in sight.

And where the other one is still, this one is spinning.

My eyes begin to drift shut, laboring under the weight of a thousand nights spent with no sleep, and my head slumps back against the dirt. I fight it for all of a few seconds before they close completely, and I can't find it in myself to open them again.

"Rest now," Kazu's smooth, soothing voice urges above me. "We'll meet again soon enough, I promise you."

So I do.

* * *

I wake up in a hospital room.

My eyes crack open, taking in a blurry white landscape of nothingness, which eventually takes the shape of a ceiling. How long have I been out? There's no way I could have been unconscious the whole way back to Konoha, is there? And _ow_, what is wrong with my stomach? I inhale deeply, reigning my thoughts in and easing the strain on my aching middle slightly, and get a nose full of too-clean hospital smell in the process. Bleh.

I crane my head, observing my room. I immediately glide right over the usual affair and light upon a small vase filled with some yellow and white and orange flowers on the nightstand beside my bed. Huh. I don't think I've ever gotten flowers before. I shimmy an arm out from under my paper-thin blanket to pluck one out. It takes three tries, and by the time I get one, small, dainty and yellow, I'm too busy scowling at my useless arm to admire it.

"Ah, you're awake."

I start in my bed, hissing at the pain that flares up in my stomach as a result, and crane my head around to the other side of the room. The owner of the voice is sitting in a cushioned chair by my bedside, a scroll in his lap and a smile on his face. "Old man," I say in surprise. He's wearing his Hokage robes, like he always does, and his hat is hanging off a peg in the corner above a chair currently occupied by my Uchiha teammate's sleeping form. Over his shoulder a shinobi stands tall and silent, a porcelain mask obscuring his face decorated with the likeness of a weasel. A fine, pure white cloak covers the rest of his body. The Anbu Commander.

I turn back to the old man. "How long have I been out?"

His smile fades. "Just over a week," he says, and the words hit me like a physical blow to the head.

"What happened?" I ask dazedly.

"My question exactly," he says. "You arrived here suffering from extreme chakra exhaustion, intensive shock damage, and a debilitating concussion. Kakashi tells me that you engaged in single combat with a B-ranked nukenin from Kumo, and Sasuke tells me that you were briefly kidnapped by a man wearing an orange mask and a black cloak."

He holds the scroll up which the Commander instantly reaches out to grab, and leans forward intently. "I have already received debriefings from Team 9 and the rest of your team, and have allocated the proper punishments to Hyuuga Neji and Rock Lee for disregarding the protocol of joint missions and endangering you and Sasuke, but that has not made me any more knowledgeable. Your official mission debriefing will not take place until you're cleared from the hospital, but in the meantime would you mind telling me just what in the world happened to you?"

So I tell him. I tell him all about my fight with the nukenin from start to finish, going over each of the jutsu he used in extensive detail, Kakashi's intervention, and mechanically relay the killing blow I inflicted upon him. The old man listens to the whole thing without interruption, and nods when I'm done.

"You were very lucky," he decides. "Your chakra defect makes you the perfect counter for raiton specialists like Raiakuzu of the Electric Fist. If it had been either of the other two B-ranked shinobi..." He shakes his head and sighs. "I suppose it doesn't matter at this point."

"Yeah," I agree. My eyes flicker over to my teammate again. "Hey, how long has Sasuke been here?"

"Since you were checked in here," The old man says, a smile stealing back onto his face. "Besides eating and training, he's spent all of his time in this room. Now, how much of this was out of concern for you and how much was because of his discrepancies with his clan I can not say," he finishes exasperatedly.

I snort. "Sasuke would tag along with me to my grave if it meant getting away from his folks."

"Indeed," he murmurs. "Now, I believe you have one more thing to tell me before I can leave you to your recovery."

I grimace. "It was... weird. When he grabbed me, everything turned dark, and it felt like I was falling through nothing, even though he was pulling me through the ground. The only thing I could feel was his hand on the back of my shirt. Then we dropped into this little cave, and I hit my head. Hard." I reach up and lean forward, prodding gently at my head, and find thick bandages in the way.

"He didn't really do much to me. Just-" I stop short.

"Yes?" The old man presses. My eyebrows furrow.

"He just-" Poked at my stomach. "He, uh." Told me he wanted to bring peace to the world. "He..." Had a sharingan.

He called himself Hirakazu, or Kazu for short. He has other people following his cause, and they might be as strong as him. He had a doujutsu I've never seen before.

It all sticks in my throat. It isn't a matter of me wanting to keep his secrets for him, or not being sure how to put it into words. I just can't _say_it. I stare helplessly at the old man, feeling panic well up in me. "I can't."

Alarm steals across his wrinkled face. "Commander," he says sharply, and the man behind him steps forward, reaching up and plucking the mask off his face, revealing smooth, pale features and two fully matured sharingan eyes, not unlike Kazu's. He gets in close and locks eyes with me, and the tomoe in each eye start spinning, like Kazu's purple one had. After nearly a minute of tensely holding the impromptu staring contest, he steps back, a troubled expression on his face.

"I didn't find anything, Hokage-sama," he reports quietly. The old man frowns.

"Naruto," he says. "Can you recall your captor performing any handseals during your time with them? Making any strange gestures? Anything at all?"

Of course I do, I try to say. He wasn't exactly being subtle about it. He mind-fucked me with his purple eye, and now I can't talk. None of it comes out, of course.

"I can't," I repeat. His frown deepens, and he suddenly stands up, holding out a hand. The Commander hands the scroll back to him, and he crosses the room, grabbing his hat off the peg and putting it on.

"I'm sorry to leave you like this, Naruto, but I need to contact a few people. In the meantime, try to figure out what you can and can't say. I should be back by tomorrow at the latest." He turns in the doorway, notices my wide-eyed look, and gives me a reassuring smile. "Don't worry. We'll have you fixed up before the end of the week." And then he's out the door, off to gather an entourage of shinobi to puzzle out the specifics of the molestation of my mind. Joy.

I drag my eyes away from the door and pluck irritably at the tubes peppering my body, try to ignore the simultaneous hunger and pain warring for dominance in my gut, and wonder when my head will stop pounding. God I hate hospitals.

A small clearing of the throat snaps me out of my disgruntled musings, and I find the Commander still standing by my bedside gazing at me solemnly, his now black eyes inscrutable.

"Hey," I say awkwardly. He nods. "What's up?"

"Were you lying to the Hokage?" He asks bluntly. Woah there.

"What? No!" I say indignantly. His eyes bore into me, somehow even more intimidating than their crimson counterparts.

"You swear?" He presses.

"Of course I swear. I'd never keep secrets like that from the old man," I reply heatedly. A long, tense staredown ensues, until finally he nods again.

"Hokage-sama trusts you," he says seriously. "More so than even some of his jounin. Do not abuse that trust."

"Got it," I snap. He sighs.

"Pride means little in matters such as these. Just keep it in mind," he insists. I roll my eyes but acquiesce anyway.

"I will."

"Good." He turns his and studies Sasuke, curled up in the corner, and something like affection appears on his face. "He's very fond of you, you know," he says quietly. "Sometimes I think he spends more time with you than he does at home."

"He does," I confirm, a knee-jerk response more than anything, before his statement actually clicks in my mind. I stare at him, surprised. "You're his brother."

I've heard about the mythical Uchiha Itachi before, of course. Word of Konoha's Genjutsu prodigy and his gallant white Commander cloak can be heard in bars, training grounds, the Academy; hell, even the old man has had something to say about the guy a time or two, when I'm feeling particularly stumped on something that _the_Uchiha Itachi has already conquered in some spectacular fashion. Until just now, though, the connection between the big bad Commander and Sasuke's older brother hadn't clicked.

Which is kind of silly, because for all I've learned about the guy from others, the majority of my knowledge of him comes from Sasuke. As I've come to learn over the years, his older brother is pretty much the only Uchiha in existence Sasuke doesn't actively dislike. He actually seems to look up to him, to some extent, as a goal to reach if nothing else. Not too dissimilar to me and the old man, actually.

From what Sasuke's told me of him, he's one of an almost extinct species, known as the Tolerable-Uchiha. And yet this is the first time I've met him.

Itachi cocks an eyebrow. "Not what you expected?"

I shake my head. "Just caught me off guard is all." I make to ask him a question, only for him to raise a hand, a blank mask settling over his features. His other hand reaches up across his torso and taps his shoulder twice, pauses, and then taps three more times in rapid succession. Then he grabs his mask from its place hanging on his waist and puts it on, bowing.

"My apologies, but I'm need elsewhere," he says curtly. "Make sure my foolish little brother gets some food in him before he goes off training again." Then he disappears in a silent _shunshin_, leaving me with my sleeping teammate and my thoughts.

I consider going back to sleep, decide I've got more than enough rest saved up already, and contemplate my flower for a while. Then I contemplate the other flowers. I contemplate the sprawling market district through my window, contemplate the number of tiles in the floor, contemplate the ceiling...

God I hate hospitals.

Finally I press the little call button on the wall beside my bed, and wait impatiently for the nurse. She comes bustling in an eternity later, all prim and proper with her clipboard tucked under one arm and a plastic smile pasted on her face.

Well, maybe that's a little harsh. But she's definitely too happy for someone who spends half their life in a hospital. It's not natural.

"Good afternoon, Uzumaki-san," she says cheerfully, coming to a stop in front of one of the beeping monitors attached to my body and marking down some notes on her clipboard. "Is there something I can do for you?"

"Yeah, some clothes would be nice. I'd rather not go parading into the cafeteria with my crack showing for all the world to see," I say, tugging distastefully at the hospital gown underneath my blanket. My admittedly crass language doesn't even phase the woman, who promptly tucks her clipboard back under her arm and hits me with a stern look.

"You've just woken up from a small coma and are still recovering from very serious injuries, Uzumaki-san. You're not leaving that bed for another week at least." She smiles brightly. _Unnatural_. "I can definitely fetch you something to hold you over, though. Do you have any preferences?"

Ichiraku ramen. "Nah, I'm just hungry."

"Great! I'll go grab that for you right now," she promises, sweeping out of the room in a flurry of happiness and rainbows and where's my vomit bucket?

"Hey," A soft voice says, jerking me out of my sour musings. Sasuke sits in the chair the old man had dragged up to the side of my bed, studying me with bloodshot eyes and bags that match his shirt. He looks awful.

"Hey," I return quietly. His lips quirk.

"I look like hell, don't I?"

"Frozen over," I confirm. He grimaces.

"They wouldn't let me bring an extra bed in here, and getting food has been like pulling teeth. They said there were too many patients in need already." He snorts. "My father probably just told them to make things as miserable as possible for me so I'd go back to the compound."

"Why'd you stay here for so long?" I ask. "You've got the key to my place for when your folks are being dickish."

Sasuke shrugs, glancing away. "I wanted to make sure you were okay."

I exhale sharply through my teeth. "Was I that bad?" I ask softly.

He runs a hand through his hair, a nervous gesture. "You really were. You got beat on by a B-ranked close combat specialist who just so happened to have an affinity for one of the three most debilitating elements."

"I had the elemental advantage, though," I counter.

"It doesn't matter," he growls, clenching his teeth in abrupt rage. "Kakashi-sensei told us he was a seasoned chunin, and we just graduated. I should have been there."

"He was also cocky as all hell," I point out. A thought occurs to me. "Why _weren't_you there?"

As soon as I say it I know it came out wrong. I'm only curious as to what happened with that shinobi he choked in the mud, really. I managed the nukenin by myself well enough, and it doesn't seem like Sasuke meant to leave me to go it solo. But as soon as I ask the question he flinches, guilt darkening his features even further.

"He was a Genjutsu specialist," he explains lowly. "He had already ambushed Sakura and Tenten and knocked them out when I found the cabin they were in. He was about to... do something to Sakura, and I tried to take him down, but I-" He shivers.

"It was subtle. There was never an abrupt change in anything, like the Genjutsu they used on us in the Academy. He just reacted faster than I could adapt to and immobilized me with ninja wire. In the illusion, that is. Then he made me watch."

"... Watch what?" I ask when he doesn't continue. He closes his eyes.

"It doesn't matter. It was only a genjutsu," he dismisses. "I paid him back for it."

An image of Sasuke's face twisted with fury and the twig thin shinobi's own desperate sobbing appears in my head, along with the sound of muffled screams and choking. Yeah. He paid him back alright.

"What was it like?" Sasuke suddenly asks. I stare blankly at him. "Your kill."

Oh. My eyebrows furrow. "It was quick," I decide after a moment of consideration. "He was going to die soon, anyway, I think. These two dogs with Konoha headbands had already taken a couple bites out of him, and he was bleeding pretty bad. I still did it, though. Killed him." I notice the chill in the room, then, and wish I had some actual clothes. "He was powering up this big raiton jutsu and I tried to take him out before he could level me with it, but I slipped-"

"You slipped?" Sasuke cuts in disbelievingly. I scowl.

"There was a ton of mud and corpses lying all over the place. At least I have an excuse." He rolls his eyes at that. Victory. "But yeah, I slipped and he finished powering up his jutsu, and I had to improvise. So I sort of twisted my chakra to give me some momentum, broke through his jutsu, and stuck a kunai in his throat."

Sasuke takes that in, eyes firmly on his hands. "Do you feel guilty?"

"I don't... think so," I say hesitantly. "He was a nukenin and a sadistic bastard at that. He could have easily hidden from us if he'd only wanted to get away from Kakashi and Gai like he said, but instead he chose to beat up on us. I think it was... justified."

"Yeah," Sasuke agrees. "We couldn't even wake Tenten up until we were halfway back to Konoha, she was so bad. Sakura wouldn't talk to any of us until we got back to Konoha, and she still hasn't told me what he made her see. He deserved it." I nod along with him, filing a talk with Sakura under the urgent category in my head and pretending not to notice the troubled look lurking in his eyes.

"Well, I don't know about you, but all this healing from debilitating wounds is making me crave Ichiraku's," I say brightly, throwing the covers off me and setting to plucking all of the no doubt vitally important tubes and needles out of my skin. It hits me that I understand the freaky nurse lady now, and her unnatural smiles. Anything to take the patient's mind off what they're in for. "Wanna come with?"

"Only because I haven't had anything to eat since yesterday," he says distastefully. The thank you goes unsaid. "And didn't you just send the nurse to get you food?" I pause in my methodical plucking to grope for the power cord connected to a shrieking monitor.

"Like hell I'm going to eat here when I could be having delicious ramen. I wanted to sneak out under the pretext of heading to the cafeteria, but now we'll just have to improvise." I yank the cord out and finish with the last of the wires, and stretch. The muscles in my stomach clench painfully, and I wince.

"Where'd they put my clothes?" I ask. Sasuke points to a small closet off to the right. "Thanks." I swing my legs over the bed, biting back a hiss, and touch down on the ground.

"Careful," Sasuke warns, but I've already let go of the bed. The room spins, my head slams into something hard and pointy, and I find myself on the ground with my brain trying to pound its way free of my skull. I watch in confusion as a few lonely drops of blood drip onto and stain the spotless whiteness beside my head, slowly growing into a little stream.

"Shit!" Sasuke curses on the other side of the bed. A chair screeches, my bed creaks, and then my teammate is crouched beside me, resting a cautious hand on my shoulder.

"That... hurt," I say.

"What happened?" Sasuke asks, concern seeping into his tone. I squint at the little puddle of blood formed by the droplets. Why is everything so hazy? I was fine just a second ago... "Naruto?" His voice is more urgent now.

"My legs," I say, finally. "Didn't hold up. Head is kind of fuzzy." A lightning bolt of pain cuts through my abdomen, and I groan. "Stomach hurts."

The sound of a door slamming open pierces the haze in my thoughts, followed by quick footsteps on the floor and a sharp intake of breath. "Uchiha-san?" A male voice asks.

"He tried to stand up," Sasuke replies. He doesn't move, though, keeping his hand on my shoulder. "His legs couldn't support his weight. He says his head feels fuzzy."

"I'd imagine." The owner of the voice, who I assume to be a medic nin of some sort, kneels down and presses the palm of his hand flat against my skull, where I suppose the bleeding is coming from. Pain, of course, is the result of this, but it's thankfully followed by a soothing warmth. The palm retracts, and the medic nin hums. "Is that all he said?"

"Stomach hurts," I mumble.

"I figured as much." The man's tone switches from calm and soothing to stern and reproachful in a heartbeat. "You're still suffering from chakra exhaustion. What made you think trying to stand after only a week of recovery was a good idea? We had you hooked up to those machines for a reason, you know."

He continues on ranting while I close my eyes and sigh, clinging to the warmth of his medical jutsu.

"This sucks," I mutter, and fall into blissful unconsciousness.


	8. Chapter 8

"-can't even trust him to rest when he's injured," Someone says exasperatedly, far, far away. My eyes flutter, but promptly shut when the blinding light hits them. I feel the thin hospital mattress underneath me, and the wires back in my body. Fantastic.

I try to demand the identity of the voice, but instead settle for some mumbles and grunts. For some reason my mouth has been stuffed with cotton, and my head stuck in a vise. It's more than a little uncomfortable.

"Ah, he's awake. If you'd be so kind, Watanabe-san..." I gag forcefully, but the stupid cotton stays lodged in my throat.

"Yes, Hokage-sama." A heartbeat later something rests lightly on my head and a pleasant chill spreads throughout my body, banishing the pain and fuzziness from my head and washing away the cotton in my throat. My eyes flutter open, and there's the unholy white ceiling in all its glory.

"Thank you. That will be all," The old man says. The medic mutters another 'Yes, Hokage-sama' in a simpery voice and scurries out, closing the door behind him. Silence fills the room, but I'm too busy basking in the afterglow of the medical jutsu to break it. Your move, old man.

"... Hokage-sama," A new voice speaks up uncertainly.

"He's coherent," The old man assures them. "He's just being juvenile."

Tch. Fine, be that way.

"I am not," I shoot back hotly and not at all ironically, heaving myself up onto an elbow to glare at the Hokage.

"There we go," he says, smirking. "Naruto, I'd like to introduce you to Yamanaka Inoichi, a member of our intelligence division."

The man in question is sitting in a chair next to the Hokage, a clipboard in one hand and a pen in the other, studying me with calculating sky blue eyes. He's wearing a plain pair of pants and undershirt, a standard jounin flak jacket, leather bracers, and a long red vest. His hair is bleach blond and long, starting spiky at the top of his head and gradually straightening out into a tight ponytail down his back.

"Hey," I greet, waving a hand.

"Hello, Naruto."

"You're not gonna screw my mind, are you?" I ask hopefully. He glances at the old man for a moment, but nods.

"We'll do things the old fashioned way first," he agrees. He clicks the pen. "Let's start with the basics."

And it begins.

We go through the standard "mind fucked" questions to start, namely the "Was he wearing anything on his forehead?"s and the "Did he use any elemental jutsu?"s. Just probing the limits of the restrictions Kazu placed on me. Conveniently enough, this whole process is a means of information gathering in and of itself. Genjutsu like the one placed on me rarely work out for the person who cast the thing, because of all the little loopholes apparent in a mental lockdown. Just discerning what he covered and what he didn't will provide them with some knowledge of his skill level.

And by the time we make it to the end of Inoichi's little list, it's looking pretty good for my masked captor. I can talk about anything that Sasuke saw, like the cloak and the mask and that weird jutsu he used to drag me underground- the intelligence shinobi nods along when I describe what it felt like on my side of things, jotting down something on his paper and muttering about doton jutsu- but that's it. I try describing his eyes when I notice the pattern, hoping that maybe Sasuke caught a glimpse of them before I got dragged under, but it's no good.

Finally, Inoichi pulls a pad of paper out of his pocket, handing it over to me along with his pen, and instructs me to write down anything I couldn't say during the questioning. The pen gets within an inch of the paper before my hand seizes. I drop the writing utensil with a startled hiss, kneading my cramped appendage forcefully. He promptly picks the pen back up and scribbles something else down.

"Why don't you try asking us some questions," he suggests. It actually takes me a minute to catch his meaning, I'm rather embarrassed to admit. But when it clicks a million of them jump to mind all at once.

Who was the last rogue Uchiha? Is it possible for one man to bring peace to the whole world? Have you ever heard of a doujutsu that involves the color purple and swirling pupil-irises? And so many more. None of them make it past my lips, unsurprisingly. None but one.

"Why did I become a shinobi?"

The old man's eyes widen a fraction and Inoichi begins scribbling furiously on his clipboard, no doubt reading into the question from a thousand different angles. The Hokage considers me seriously. I force myself into a sitting position, fisting my blanket and staring right back at him.

"I don't know, Naruto," he finally admits. My grip slackens, and I sigh disappointedly.

"There was nothing I said when I was little to tip you off? Nothing at all?"

"Well, I do seem to recall you harboring a desire for respect," he says after a contemplative silence. I grimace.

That couldn't have been the only thing, though. The old man had said himself that I wouldn't have gotten through the Academy otherwise. What was it, then? It's on the tip of my tongue, I can feel it. I just can't...

"Do you have anything else you'd like to try asking us?" Inoichi speaks up. I shake my head. "In that case, I suppose..." He makes a frustrated sound, turning to the old man. "Hokage-sama, I don't understand why I can't just-"

"Inoichi," The Hokage interrupts the man, his tone suddenly steel. "This is not open for discussion. My word is final." The room grows just a little colder. The jounin's jaw clenches, but he nods his assent nonetheless.

"Yes, Hokage-sama."

We spend an eternity after that twisting my brain into more knots searching for a loophole to Kazu's genjutsu, with little enough to show for it. By the time the Yamanaka jounin has run out of ideas the sun has climbed from its position just above the treeline up to its apex, and we still haven't vocalized anything but the clothes he was wearing and the technique he used to pull me into the ground. Finally, the intelligence shinobi stands up and grabs the note pad off my bed, bows stiffly to the old man, and leaves, shutting the door just forcefully enough behind him for it to be noticeable. The old man rolls his eyes.

"He wanted in my head," I say matter-of-factly into the silence.

"Yes."

"Why didn't you let him?" I mean, I'm not complaining or anything. From what I've heard it feels ridiculously obtrusive, almost like you're being looked at naked the whole time they're in there. Except your thoughts are naked too, and you better hope it's not a hot kunoichi rooting around in your brain... "He seemed pretty pissed. Wouldn't it have been easier to let him take a look?"

He waves a hand. "Don't mind that. The Yamanaka are a prideful bunch when it comes to their clan jutsu, nothing more. He'll get over it soon enough."

"But why not let him?" I press. His lip curls.

"Extenuating circumstances," he says, and his reluctance in revealing even that much is palpable.

There's only ever been one thing related to me that would have the old man so tight-lipped. It isn't hard to make the connection.

"The seal," I guess. He nods. "So I'm still not old enough to know, then?"

He sighs. "Naruto..."

"I mean, I'm pretty much an adult now, aren't I? How much older do you want me to get? What happens if I never get that old?" I insist.

"I can't," he reiterates, shaking his head. "Not yet. I made a promise. You know that." Of course I know that. He's only told me about it a dozen times over the years.

The subject of my seal has always been a tense one between the two of us, since that fateful day when I first discovered the stupid thing, training after yet another useless class on chakra theory in the blistering heat. I'd ripped my shirt off, and a few minutes later noticed the great swirling masterpiece glowing a faint, sullen red from its place on my gut. The first thing to jump into my head, funnily enough, was that someone had sealed a super secret jutsu scroll in me, just waiting for me to unlock its top secret secrets.

The Hokage had quickly disavowed me of that dream, almost before I was done explaining the situation and asking him if he could unseal it for me. The unlocking part, at least. It turned out it really was a top secret seal that had been placed on me right after I was born, though he didn't actually tell me what it was for, just that he'd made a promise to my parents not to tell anyone. Not even me, until I reached a certain age, but I'd screwed that one up easily enough. Then he wrapped the whole thing up with a stern order never to tell anyone about my seal. Not my friends, not Iruka-sensei, none of my caretakers, no one.

And I never did. Not even Sasuke.

"What are you waiting for, anyway?" I ask sourly. "What could the stupid thing possibly do that telling me about it now instead of in a year or two would be such a big deal?" Silence. "Can you at least give me an idea? Will it be when I hit chunin?" Silence. "What about when I make it to jounin? Will I be ready then?" I ask loudly, frustration bleeding into my tone.

The Hokage quirks a little smile. "I certainly won't keep it from you when you become the Godaime," he says.

I glower at him. "Old man..."

"Just a joke, just a joke," he assures me, eyes shining with mirth. "Truthfully, though, your rank won't have anything to do with it. Neither will age. I'm not keeping this from you for anything so petty. I'll tell you as soon as I think you're ready to know," he says sincerely.

"I swear, old man, this thing better be worth the wait," I grumble.

We move on to safer waters after that, mostly just catching me up on all the things I'd missed during the week and a day I'd spent unconscious. I learn that Lee went and got himself burned bad enough to warrant just under a week in the hospital while beating the everloving shit out of one of the rogue chunin (not the old man's words, but I got the point). I learn that the shinobi I'd killed had a massive bounty on his head courtesy of Kusa, which is now available for me to collect whenever I feel the need.

I learn that Sakura and Tenten were kept here in the hospital for three days after we got back, suffering from severe mental trauma.

"Is- Are they okay now?" I ask concernedly. Sakura is already so timid- if she got hit with something really bad...

"I truly hope so." _I don't know_.

"Did either of them say anything about what that guy's jutsu did?" I don't even bother asking about Sasuke. If he wasn't willing to tell me yesterday, there's no way he told anyone else beforehand.

The Hokage shakes his head in the negative. "Both of them were quite adamant in staying silent."

"And you didn't have...?"

He cocks a single, gray eyebrow. "Not all matters of the mind can be solved by a simple Yamanaka intrusion. If that were the case I'd no doubt be paying them a lot more than I do." I sink back deeper into my bed and scowl up at the ceiling, and think.

From what I saw Tenten has a pretty solid support system in Gai and Lee, if not the Hyuuga. Whatever it is that stupid nukenin did to her, she should be able to get through it. Sakura, on the other hand...

I'm not sure what her home life is like, but if Sasuke has been spending all his time training and hiding out in my thoroughly disinfected prison cell, and if Kakashi is Kakashi, she likely hasn't been getting much in the way of a shinobi's support. And from the way the old man is shying away from a concrete answer, and from the way Sasuke described the whole ordeal yesterday, it sounds like she really needs it.

That's not to say I'm the shinobi she needs to talk to, of course. Now that I really think about it, the only genjutsu I've ever been hit with has been Kazu's, and that one was hardly traumatic. Extremely frustrating, and a little bit disturbing, sure, but nothing mentally or emotionally damaging. I don't have too much to sympathize with her about.

I'll definitely still try, though. Because I'm Uzumaki Naruto, and that's what I do.

"Oh," A soft exclamation comes from the doorway, and I tilt my head down to see Sakura standing there with a small cluster of flowers held tightly in her hands. "Hokage-sama, I didn't know-" she stammers, but the old man merely smiles that grandfatherly smile of his and creaks his way to his feet.

"Not a problem, Haruno-san. Naruto and I were just about done anyway." And with that he tightens his robes about himself and bids me farewell, sweeping out of my cell in a flurry of white and red.

Looks like I won't even need to get out of bed for this one. "Hey Sakura," I greet happily. "Are those for me?"

"Y-yes," she says, fidgeting with a particularly orange flower. She shuffles in, making for the nightstand by my bed where my other flowers are. She plucks those out and drops the fresh ones in, tossing the limp ones in the garbage bin sitting by the door.

"So!" I say, clapping my hands together, and causing Sakura to jump a bit. She turns to me, and I notice the bags under her eyes, even darker than the ones Sasuke was sporting yesterday. Have I been the only one getting any sleep on this team? "What's Kakashi had you guys doing while I was out?"

"Not much," she answers softly, walking over and taking the old man's seat after a moment's hesitation. The way she very deliberately avoids touching any of the shadows in the room while doing this does not escape my notice. I struggle to contain my frown. "He's been focusing mostly on individual training, using a clone jutsu to teach both of us. I think he's been waiting for you to get better."

"That's surprisingly nice of him," I admit, subtly shifting my weight so that a particular tendril of shadow slithers forward just a bit closer to my teammates foot. Without missing a beat, the sandaled appendage retreats and settles crossed behind her other leg. What in the world.

"He's not as bad as you think he is," Sakura says, and she actually sounds a little exasperated. "He's very... eccentric, yes, but it's not like he hasn't been teaching us."

"He's still the worst," I retort sourly. "What he did with those pheromones is unforgivable. Just thinking about all of those spiders-" I shiver.

"That was part of our exam, though!" Sakura protests.

"No, not that time he tagged us with vicious predator-attracting pheromones. The _other_time." She doesn't have anything to say to that one. Victory. "Enough of Hatake, though. I want to hear about what happened with you and Tenten." The pink-haired girl's eyes go wide, apprehension shining clear as day in their grass green depths.

"What?" She squeaks.

"Yeah, you know. How many bandits did you two get? I only got to take down a couple before Raiakuzu the Electric Prick crashed the party," I reply easily, carefully observing the tension that drains out of her then. I arch my back, stretching, and watch out of the corner of my eye as her arm carefully settles into her lap to avoid the resulting shadow. Just what did that nukenin do to her?

"Tenten did most of the work, really," she begins modestly. "I mostly took Sasuke's advice and used explosive notes to herd them into the middle of the field while Tenten picked them off. It was better that way. Her accuracy is unreal."

I grunt. "It better be, for her to be chucking axes around by her teammates' heads."

She giggles. "That's nothing, you should have seen this one thing she did with a shuriken and three senbon-"

She stops cold then, in mid sentence, to flinch bodily away from the shadow that I'd thrown across her face stretching my arms above my head. The hospital chair shrieks and goes tumbling backwards, taking her with it. Almost before she hits the ground the pink-haired kunoichi is scrambling to her feet for a patch of sunlight at the foot of my bed. She stands there, panting slightly, though I doubt it's from any sort of exertion, and shaking just enough for it to be noticeable.

Holy shit.

When she finally gains control of herself and turns to me, there's dread in her eyes. "I... I..." She stutters ineffectually. I continue to stare at her, shocked.

"Sakura?"

"I..."

"What did he do to you?" I ask slowly. She flinches again, though she thankfully manages to keep her feet this time.

"I..."

"_Sakura_," I say sharply. She shakes her head. "Tell me. What was the name of the genjutsu? What did it do?" She shakes her head again, almost desperately, her eyes clenched tightly shut. She looks like she's about to cry. I lean forward, irritably jerking a few cord too short to accommodate me out of my skin. The same monitor from yesterday screams its mechanical scream.

_We had you hooked up to those machines for a reason, you know._

"Sakura, you can tell me about this. I won't tell anyone else if you don't want me to, but at least tell me. You need to tell _someone_." Shake shake shake. I can see tears streaming down her cheeks now. "Did- Did he rape-" I can't even say it. Come on, Uzumaki. Now's not the time to lose your voice!

She shakes her head again anyway. I tear the covers off my legs, remove the last of the cords from my body, and swing my legs over the side of the bed. I almost collapse again, my stupid legs are so weak, but I grip the nightstand with one hand and the metal bedpost with the other, and carefully find my feet. Then I take a careful step forward, and another, and another, until I'm standing in front of my teammate's hunched form. I bring my hands down on her shoulders, almost as much to steady me than to gain her attention.

She flinches again, almost ripping herself out of my grasp and sending me tumbling to the floor. I stare determinedly at her. "Just tell me the name of the genjutsu, Sakura. Just tell me the name." She closes her eyes again, but I shake her until she opens them. "Sakura! _Tell me the name_."

She whispers something, so quietly she might as well have been mouthing it.

"What'd you say?" I demand. She shudders.

"It wasn't a genjutsu," she repeats, just loud enough for me to hear it. My brow furrows.

"It- What was it, then?" I ask, at a loss. She shakes her head again, lurching backwards for the door. I stumble after her, lose my balance, and fall to my knees. "Sakura, wait!"

But she's already gone, the sound of her rapid footsteps fading down the hallway.

* * *

"This is ridiculous," I growl, propping the crutches under either arm. "I can walk fine by myself. You just saw me walk out of the bathroom two minutes ago!" The civilian doctor crosses his arms over his chest, watching me with the unsympathetic eyes of a hawk.

"Be thankful that we're allowing you this much, Uzumaki-san," he says, his tone dripping with disapproval. "After the scare you gave us not once, but twice removing your IVs without consent from myself or my colleague, we should have you strapped to that bed for the rest of the week."

Like hell- they're lucky I've stayed this long. It's been a day since Sakura's meltdown, which lead to me stumbling through the hospital and eventually bumping into the old man having a discussion with an Uchiha sporting a swath of bandages over his right eye, among other injuries. He'd agreed to getting me out of the hospital quickly enough after I explained Sakura's behavior, but the hospital staff retaliated by needling one more overnight for observation out of him. And so I'd spent most of the night staring up at the ceiling wondering what in the name of all nine Bijuu that skeleton of a shinobi could have done to my teammates that didn't involve genjutsu to shake them up so much.

"At least they're letting you keep your clothes," Sasuke says, smirking. He'd showed up early this morning, having apparently spent the day and most of the night training with Kakashi before passing out back at my apartment, the lucky bastard. He actually looks a lot better for it, to be honest. He's still got the bags under his eyes, but he doesn't look as weary anymore.

Did my mini coma really have that much of an affect on him? Sasuke's never been the emotional type, but then again neither of us have ever been out of commission for this long either.

"Honestly, I'm not even sure how you can do this much right now," The doctor continues to babble. "Your muscles had sustained severe raiton damage when you were first brought in; you shouldn't have been able to shuffle into a _wheelchair_for at least another few days, let alone walk. And that's not even taking into account the chakra exhaustion, which-"

"That's everything, right?" I ask, gesturing with my crutch at the backpack in my teammate's hands. He nods. "Let's get the hell out of here, then."

"Just one second now," The doctor protests indignantly. "You still need to take a final physical examination and complete some paperwork before you can be discharged, Uzumaki-san."

I groan. "Amazing."

A few lifetimes later I gimp my way out the front doors of the hospital, into the morning sunlight. The sweet, natural, not-white sunlight. I inhale deeply, relishing in the smell of the trees and the wafting scents of the various delicacies being put on sale one distract down. I set off in that direction, Sasuke faithfully slowing down to match my crippled pace.

"Hey, my money is in there, right?" I ask. Sasuke nods, and after a bit of rummaging hands me over my bright green frog wallet. "Thanks. So what sounds good for breakfast?"

We end up deciding on a stall harking a wide variety of fruits imported from the capitol along with freshly baked sweet rolls. Sasuke grabs a couple of the former, and I grab a few of both. He gives me an odd look as I shuffle away stuffing my face, but the food tastes far too good after my eating hiatus for me to care. He can be as prim and proper with his fruity fruits all he likes, but I'm _hungry_.

"Alright, that was amazing," I say contentedly when it's all gone. Sasuke hums in agreement, taking the final bite out of his pear and tossing the core into a nearby alley. Gesturing for him to follow, I head for a back road leading to training ground seven, bypassing the bustling crowd of civilians and shinobi alike crowding the market district. Apartment buildings tower on both sides of us, tall and colorful and echoing with the chatter of children and adults alike. It's still the quieter of the two options, though.

"Okay," I say, gaining Sasuke's attention. "So on a scale of one to ten, how close an eye have you been keeping on Sakura while I was out?"

He shifts his eyes away from me, considering the ground. "One being the lowest?"

I growl. "You've got to be kidding me."

"Look, it's not that I didn't want to-"

"She's been traumatized, man! She had a mental breakdown yesterday when I tried asking her about what happened. How in the hell have you not been helping her out?"

"I didn't know how, okay?" He snaps. "I never saw what he did to her and Tenten, I only saw their reactions. I don't know anything at all about what she's been through, except that I can't possibly sympathize with her about it! I don't know what to _do_." His foot lashes out and kicks a rock, sending it whistling through the air out of sight. And I realize that maybe it wasn't just my coma that was stressing him out so much this past week.

"I think you need to tell me what you saw," I tell him quietly. He closes his eyes, and the soft crunch of the dirt under our feet and the chatter above overtakes us.

"It wasn't- There was nothing overt about it. One moment Sakura and Tenten were both unconscious, and the next Sakura was clawing at her throat and gagging, like she was choking on something. She made this voice in the back of her throat, I can't-" He shudders. "She started twisting around, trying to reach something on her back, but there wasn't anything there. She... She opened her eyes then. It might have been the light, but they looked almost gray." He shakes his head, blowing a frustrated breath out of his nose. "It was so strange, I can't describe it. It just felt wrong.

"She just curled up into a ball after that, and started sobbing. She wasn't crying tears though, she was crying _blood_. That's when I broke out of the genjutsu he'd placed on me."

"That's when you killed him," I say. He nods silently. I consider the balconies peppering the buildings above me, and see a little girl run past one, giggling. "I'd have killed him too." Sasuke hesitates, but nods again.

"After I came back in the house and woke her up, she seemed fine. She wiped the blood off her cheeks and asked me where you were. She was shaking and stuttering a little, but I figured that was understandable," he explains.

"What about Tenten?" I ask.

"There was blood on her cheeks too when I checked her, but I couldn't wake her up. I think whatever he was trying to do to Sakura, he did to her first," Sasuke says, scowling fiercely at his feet.

"That fast?" Sakura and Tenten had only been gone for a minute before that Raiakuzu showed up.

Sasuke shrugs helplessly. "It's the only thing that makes sense. I don't know of any kind of genjutsu capable of doing so much in so little time, though."

"Probably because it wasn't a genjutsu."

He looks sharply at me. "What?"

"Sakura told me before she ran away yesterday," I explain. "That was about the only thing I managed to get out of her."

"But that's not- What could it have been?" He asks, bewildered. I give him a shrug of my own.

"Ninjutsu would be my guess. Probably kinjutsu as well, if it managed to do that much in that little time."

Sasuke chews on that for the rest of our walk, and I leave him to that while I do the same. I didn't manage to come up with anything that made sense last night, but I might as well keep trying. Eventually we escape from the throng of apartment buildings and make for the many-faced training ground district. A trio of genin from our Academy class go shooting by in training ground twenty-four and holler a hasty greeting, but otherwise the grounds are near deserted. Terrains morph as we go, from mountainous to level and much in between, until we come upon the familiar forested regions housing grounds one through twelve.

When we make it to the little bridge connecting to training ground seven, I spot Kakashi and Sakura, the former perched on one of the three stumps embedded in the middle of the little clearing and the latter sat cross-legged and hunched over a scroll on the ground. The silver-haired jounin's head suddenly perks up, and he waves cheerfully at us.

"Good morning you two! It's good to see you up on your feet, Naruto," he calls. I blink, startled.

"Uh, thanks," I call back cautiously. I gimp to a stop a couple feet from them, eyeing Sakura warily. Sasuke drops my backpack down by a log and makes for one of the training dummies attached to the trees.

"Just a second, Sasuke," Kakashi says. Said Uchiha cocks a brow, but returns obediently to our little circle. Sakura makes a wide brush stroke on the scroll, hesitates, then follows it through. "Now that the three of you are all here, I believe it's time I briefed you on what the next couple weeks of your lives are going to be like."

That doesn't sound ominous at all.

"Your teammates may have already told you this, but I've been focusing on training them individually since we got back from our mission. That's going to be a theme for a while. That mission served a few purposes, but the main one was allowing me to get a stronger idea of what your strengths and weaknesses are." Sakura taps the wooden end of her brush against the ground erratically. I lean forward, but her hair is obscuring her face and the scroll both. "Now we're going to make those shine and stamp them out, respectively."

"So no more team exercises?" I try to sound disappointed. I really do.

Kakashi smiles. Sakura makes a little dash. "Not to worry, Naruto. We won't be able to do two a day, but we'll still be doing team training every day after lunch."

Curse you, Hatake.

"Now, I've already given Sakura and Sasuke theirs, so here's your scroll." He hands me a plain scroll, about as thick and long as my fist. "That should cover the gist of what I'll be drilling you on until our next mission. Look it over before training tomorrow." And with that he hops off the log, forms a few seals, and is enveloped in a cloud of chakra smoke. When the smoke clears, there are two Kakashis instead of one. Both of their eyes curve up deviously.

"I'd suggest you start now."


	9. Chapter 9

_Wind Release: Great Breakthrough_ is an odd jutsu. At first glance, it seems to be yet another subpar wind jutsu that requires elemental manipulation and little else. There's no control or shape to it when it's released, as it manifests itself as a big, raging gale. Kind of like _Wind Release: Speeding Wind Bullets_, except not as good. Plus, it's a C-ranked ninjutsu. How complicated can a C-rank be, really?

As I hunch over clutching my throat, doing my best not to cough my lungs out, I realize it can be very, very complicated.

"That's the funny thing about this jutsu," Kakashi pipes up happily beside me. "Contrary to what you might think, it requires some shape manipulation while in its preparation stage. While you're gathering wind chakra, you need to keep it tightly contained into a shape that fits the inside of your throat perfectly. If you don't, you'll experience an extreme tickling sensation." He chuckles. "You've already found that out, though."

I give him my very best glare, though my red face and still infrequent coughing no doubt lessen the effect. "Any reason you didn't tell me this before I tried forcing it?"

"Oh, but I did," he says, hopping off of his log perch and snatching the scroll he gave me yesterday up off the ground where I'd dropped it. He unravels the whole thing with a flick of his wrist, and shows me the last few lines of writing on the last couple inches of the scroll.

_Warning: While preparing the wind chakra in one's throat, it is important to note that shape manipulation will be required to keep the jutsu stable and..._

Oh.

"I wanted to see if you'd read the whole thing like a good little student, or if you'd get too excited about the jutsu and skip some parts," Kakashi explains. I avert my eyes from his smug gaze, snatching the scroll out of his hands.

"How am I even supposed to do this stupid jutsu, in that case?" I gripe. "Wouldn't it be easier to do something that only involves elemental manipulation first?" I've said it before and I'll say it again, elemental shape manipulation is _hard_.

"Not at all," Kakashi says, shaking his head. "It won't be that difficult- it's C-ranked for a reason, after all. Besides, it's better to refine this particular skill sooner rather than later." With that he reaches into his weapons pouch and pulls out a small plastic bag, which he promptly tosses to me. I tear it open curiously, and find a tangle of balloons inside.

"Blow one of those up," he orders, and I stick a finger into the little bit of plastic obligingly, channeling chakra through my fingertip. When it's slightly bigger than my fist Kakashi holds up a hand and I tie it off. "Here's what I want you to do: Try channeling wind chakra into that balloon, but without causing any distortions in the balloon itself."

"How long do I have to do this?" I ask suspiciously, manifesting a little orb of chakra inside the balloon. Immediately, a wave of ripples spread across its latex surface. Hum.

"When you can pump a steady stream of chakra into it for five minutes straight without causing any distortions, you should be more than ready to give the _Great Breakthrough_a real try," Kakashi answers. I try pulling back on the current, but that just sets the other side of the balloon to rippling.

"Seriously though, is there any reason we can't focus on jutsu that don't need this first?" I press, squeezing my hand and my chakra simultaneously. For a few seconds the balloon is perfectly still, and then my control slips and it bulges outward as the wind slips free. "Since I don't have to worry about the elemental side of things, I could build my fighting style around those types of ninjutsu instead of these," I ask reasonably, waving my scroll. "Wouldn't that be a lot quicker?"

"It definitely would be," Kakashi agrees. "If those sort of jutsu existed, that is." I look sharply at him, letting my chakra fade from the balloon.

"Excuse me?"

"Why do you think your instructors at the Academy didn't teach you any ninjutsu, Naruto?" He asks offhandedly. "It would make sense for them to equip you with at least a couple to make up for your inability to perform the Academy Three, wouldn't it?"

"Sure." I'd hounded Iruka-sensei many, many times during my time in the Academy for that very reason. I'd always assumed his excuse of it being too advanced for me was nonsense, but... "What's your point?"

"My point is that there's a reason elemental jutsu are so difficult to master, and it isn't just channeling the chakra for them." He holds the palm of his hand out, and bright blue sparks of chakra dance alongs his fingertips. "This is what straight elemental chakra will get you. I can channel as much of it as I want, but in the end it isn't going to do anything serious." An instant later his hand is covered in sparks, so much so that they're actually dripping down to the ground. He lightly grabs my wrist, and I feel a jolt travel up my arm, but nothing else.

"This, on the other hand, is what elemental chakra combined with shape manipulation can get you." He holds out his hand again, still covered in sparks, but then they begin to coalesce, bunching together while he pumps more and more chakra into his hand. The subdued crackle of electricity rises to a piercing shriek, and then evens out into a myriad of chirping. All of a sudden I'm staring with wide eyes at a ball of lightning completely engulfing his hand.

"You're not grabbing my wrist with that, are you?" I ask weakly. He smiles.

"Of course not. A demonstration probably wouldn't hurt though..." He trails off thoughtfully, heading for a tree. I follow behind, chancing a glance at my teammates as I do. I only catch a brief flash of Sasuke, darting through the trees with Kakashi hot on his trail, but I spot Sakura in plain sight just outside the range of a tree's shadow. She's working on that scroll of hers again. Her Kakashi is standing over her, but I can't tell what he's doing from this distance.

My Kakashi raises his hand in front of one of the larger trees of training ground seven, locking his fingers together. He draws his arm back slowly, and with one sharp movement drives his hand through the tree. Literally through the tree and out the other side. Yanking his arm back out, he makes a show of shaking out his hand until his jutsu dissolves back into formless sparks before jabbing at a different part of the tree. There's a loud crack as he breaks through some bark, but besides that the trunk is undamaged.

"As you can see, elemental chakra is much more potent when used in conjunction with shape manipulation. Because of this, there isn't a single elemental ninjutsu out there that doesn't require the skill." He pauses. "That I know of, at least."

"Will I be able to do that with my wind?" I ask hopefully, admiring the gaping hole in the tree.

"Probably not." I turn surprised and disappointed eyes on the silver-haired jounin, but he just waves a hand, smiling. "That has nothing to do with your skill level, it's just how the elements work."

"I don't follow," I admit. He smiles wider and ruffles my hair, making it even spikier than usual with the residual static left on his palm.

"That's what the exercise is for, my cute little student."

I swat his hand away, scowling. "You're saying I only have to get this one exercise down and I'll be good?" If that's the case, Iruka really was just a lazy bastard.

"It'll prepare you for the _Great Breakthrough_," Kakashi says. "And it'll provide a foundation for further study, doubtlessly. But this isn't something that can be learned in one go. There's a reason you're usually a chunin or a jounin before you start focusing on the finer arts of chakra." His voice turns wry. "Unfortunately for you, your defect doesn't give you much of a choice in the matter."

Great. "This is probably for the best anyway," I sigh, heading back for my spot by the logs with Kakashi at my heels. "I've been meaning to work on shape transformation." My buzz at finally learning a jutsu is pretty much killed, but at least now I won't have to go crawling back to the old man to beg for the missing piece to the puzzle of a jutsu he gave me. Though needling information out of Kakashi probably won't be much better...

I slump down my preferred log, focusing my attentions once more on the balloon. I try squeezing with my hand and forcing my flighty chakra into a ball just a little bit smaller than the balloon again, but I barely manage to hold it for ten seconds before my control slips and the balloon bulges with escaping wind. I try again, and manage eight seconds this time. Again, five seconds. Three seconds.

I grit my teeth, gripping the balloon firmly, and _squeeze_. The latex surface remains perfectly still. Ten seconds tick past. My hand begins to shake. I squeeze harder on my little ball of chakra. Five more seconds, and sweat begins to bead on my forehead. Another three tick by at an agonizingly slow pace. Nineteen...

My control shatters all at once, and after a single moment of grotesque stretching the balloon pops.

A shadow falls over me, and I crane my head to see Kakashi perched on his log again, looking down at me amusedly. "No, no, keep going," he encourages, just earnestly enough that I can't call him out on it. "You can't expect to get this on your first try. It's going to take a while before you learn the trick of it."

"You mean the trick that you probably know and could tell me right now?" I ask pointedly.

He cocks his head. "What would be the fun in that, though?"

The _worst_.

* * *

"Alright, that's enough," Kakashi says, laughter in his voice. "I'm not made of money. Let's save some of those for tomorrow." I bare my teeth at him, seated amidst my pile of broken balloons.

"I hate you."

"Yes, yes," he dismisses, reaching into one of his flak jacket's pockets and pulling out a small slip of paper. He holds out to me. "Before I forget, here's your pay for our mission." He doesn't get past "pay" before I snatch the voucher from his hand, quickly unfolding it and zeroing in on the amount disclosed.

"Holy shit," I blurt, gaping at the string of numbers. "This is almost as much as my stipends!" If this is how all missions pay, I might be able to finally get that sword I've been looking for. Hell, if I save up for a while I could actually get a _good_one. Actually, the old man mentioned something about a bounty, didn't he? And that's for a B-rank nukenin. That has to be worth at least twice as much as a genin mission...

"I would hope so," Kakashi says, breaking me from my gleeful musings. "Considering you won't be getting those anymore."

Suddenly the amount on the voucher looks very, very small. "Excuse me?" I ask incredulously. Kakashi nods, hopping off his log and stretching.

"When a shinobi takes their first mission they're officially taken off the roster of dependents, so no more financial support."

"But I can't live off this!" I cry. My stipends are barely enough for my little apartment as it is, and "almost as much" is still less.

"That's why you do more missions," he says easily. "And if you ever get the opportunity while on said mission, you collect a bounty. Intentionally or otherwise." He smirks at me.

"What happens if I get hurt and I don't have enough money to hold me over until I can do more missions?" I ask. Kakashi shrugs.

"You get a civilian job, or you find a really good medic."

"... Wow." I lean back against my log, considering that. Looks like that sword isn't going to be happening anytime soon after all. Sigh.

"I'm making it seem a lot worse than it really is," Kakashi suddenly says, to my confusion, sounding almost sheepish "Keep in mind, you three are just getting your feet wet right now. Once you're all up to par and we get into a rhythm it won't be unusual to complete five to ten missions a month, depending on the traveling required. Pay for missions also significantly increases as you climb the ranks, so if worst comes to worst I can always loan you some money."

"Really?" I ask, surprised.

"Well, yes," he says, regarding me strangely. "I'm your sensei."

I avert my eyes from his, embarrassed for some reason. I scan the training grounds again, hoping to escape the jounin's piercing stare, and see Sasuke hunched over by a tree, panting while his Kakashi lectures him on something or another. Meanwhile, Sakura... is in the same spot as she was this afternoon, scribbling on her scroll. Kakashi is sitting next to her now, pointing at something on it.

"What is she doing?" I ask. Behind me, Kakashi sighs.

"I'm not sure yet," he admits. "She started working on it a couple days after she was released from the hospital. It's some sort of seal, but it's an extremely odd one. I still can't figure out what she wants to do with it."

"And she's been working on that the whole day?"

"She won't pay any attention to me when I try to teach her," Kakashi replies, and the concern in his voice is genuine. "When I tried taking the scroll away from her, she took out a kunai and started carving in the dirt."

"So what are we doing about this?" I ask, crossing my arms over my chest.

"There isn't much we can do for now," he says. "It's frustrating, but the hospital has already deemed her physically and mentally fit for shinobi duties, so there isn't technically anything wrong with her. For all we know, this could be some great breakthrough that occurred to her while in the hospital." Sakura's tear-stained, haunted face appears in my mind's eye.

_I... I..._

"You don't actually believe that, do you?" I ask bemusedly. Kakashi shakes his head.

"No. I don't."

"This sucks," I groan, fisting my hair. "What kind of jutsu does something like this? And how has this never happened to anyone before? It isn't like that stupid nukenin wasn't anything special- if he could learn how to do this, it can't be some super secret thing."

Kakash shrugs helplessly. "Your guess is as good as mine. Have you tried talking to her about it?"

"Yeah." _I... I..._"It didn't go well."

"Seems we'll have to wait and see how this seal of hers turns out, then," He says, clasping me on the shoulder reassuringly. "Don't forget to cash in your bounty. From what I've read in my Bingo Book that Raiakuzu should be a nice little bonus." That said, he promptly disappeared in a cloud of smoke, confirming my suspicions of Sakura's being the real copy. Climbing to my feet, I walk over to where Sasuke is still recovering, his copy likewise dispelled.

"Have fun?" I ask, grinning. He wipes some sweat from his forehead and nods.

"Tons," he confirms, his voice slightly strained but smug all the same.

"Tch. Enjoy it while you can. As soon as I've recovered enough to do Taijutsu again you're going right back to number two."

"Who says I was ever there in the first place?" He asks challengingly. My grin turns feral.

"You wanna go there, Uchiha?"

"Maybe once you're strong enough to travel faster than a brisk walk," he replies, smirking. My eyes narrow.

"You just crossed the line," I intone ominously, slipping into my stance. "Let's do this." Some small part of me observes that it isn't actually fair to fight such an obviously exhausted opponent, but hey, I'm still recovering. It evens out.

"Can't," he says, pushing off his knees.

"Come on, don't give me that," I whine. "I've been fine since yesterday. You know how fast I heal-"

"No, I mean I really can't," he cuts in, tone apologetic. "I have to meet up with Itachi before dinner."

"Oh." I straighten up out of my stance. "Well, uh, have fun with that." He hums his assent and waves, taking off for the exit of the training grounds at an easy run.

Sometimes Sasuke and his brother train in between crucial Anbu missions, usually on the basics, but sometimes on more advanced things that only someone as badass as the Anbu Commander can teach in the short amount of time they have together. It's almost enough to make a guy jealous. That one day in particular, around our fourth year in the Academy, when we were aimlessly sparring while everyone else was working on the generic Taijutsu stances and he whipped a _Grand Fireball_out of nowhere-

Wait a minute.

"Sasuke!" I call, spinning around, but he's already disappeared out onto the trail leading back to the village. "Kakashi-" I begin, looking over to Sakura and the real Kakashi's position, only to see Sakura sitting all by herself. I clench my fist, glaring darkly at the space he was just at.

"All elemental jutsu require shape transformation my ass!" I growl. I know for a fact that Sasuke has never learned that particular skill- else he would have told me when he saw me blundering around after I got the scroll on the _Heavenly Chains_. So either Kakashi was lying to my face, or there's a shortcut past all this that he refused to tell me about. Both of which warrant...

Er. What can I do to the veteran jounin, again?

"Well this blows," I mutter, sullenly kicking the tree Sasuke was leaning on. I ponder complaining to the old man for a little while, but reluctantly decide that this isn't important enough. I can poke fun all I want, but he's still the Hokage. I can't just stroll into his office when he might be doing crucial Hokage stuff to whine about being denied a (possible) shortcut. I'd beat _myself_if I did that.

And maybe Kakashi has a good reason for not leaving out this particular detail. Maybe.

Whatever. I'll deal with it tomorrow. Decision made, I head over for a look at Sakura's seal. Sure, Kakashi hasn't been able to figure it out yet, but Fuinjutsu is a patchy art. There are some things that you can't infer from previous knowledge, you have to know them firsthand. It could be that I've seen some different things than him that might help me figure out this weird seal.

It's not very likely. But I'll try anyway.

"Hey Sakura," I greet, keeping my voice exceptionally calm and friendly. The pink-haired kunoichi mumbles something under her breath, and makes a mark. "Sakura?" She bites her lip, fingers clenching the brush until they turn white, before making another mark. "Guess I'll help myself, then." I shuffle over to her side and peer over her shoulder.

And find an enormous clusterfuck of symbols and lines staring back up at me. I trace the... creation, looking for some semblance of order and sanity, and come up woefully short. I manage to pick out several familiar subseals, the vast majority of which pertain to restriction. The subseal for physical restriction and the one for spirit, the two halves of the chakra suppression seal, are both present in several places. The only problem is that none of them are connected.

"What in the world?" I crouch down, leaning forward to inspect a dense cluster of symbols in the top right corner of the seal, and in the process cast my shadow over my teammate. She jerks back, revealing her face for the first time since I saw her in the hospital. The bags under her eyes that had looked so dark then were nearly black now, and her eyes themselves were bloodshot. Her mouth opens and closes soundlessly as she watches me, frozen.

"Sakura?" I say warily, easing slowly back.

"H-hello Naruto," she whispers hoarsely. Her grip whitens on her brush again. "I- I still can't..."

"Yeah, I figured." I smile disarmingly. "Can you tell me about this, at least? It looks interesting." Her eyes flicker down to the scroll and then up at the steadily setting sun.

"It's getting late..."

"We've still got an hour or two of sunlight," I say dismissively, leaning over the scroll again. "So what's the deal with these subseals?" I ask, pointing them out. "They're supposed to be connected to each other, right?" She gives the setting sun one last nervous look before shaking her head.

"No, they're supplements," she says quietly, leaning carefully around my shadow and connecting each of the subseals with her finger, forming a shape that I can't even begin to put a name to.

"They're what now?" I ask, staring at the line she'd traced. I've studied a lot of seals over the years, whether briefly or at length, and not once have I ever seen something like that. It's not even remotely symmetrical, to start with, composed of all sorts of jagged lines and dizzying swirls. It looks demented.

For a long while she fidgets with her brush, an almost pained look on her face. I'm just about to tell her that it's fine, I'll figure it out, when she shudders and looks me straight in the eye. With a start, I realize that in my concern over her exhausted features I'd skipped over the fact that her eyes...

_It might have been the light, but they looked almost gray._

"It's a containment seal," Sakura confides, her voice low and pained.

Anticipation strikes me like a bolt of chakra lightning. I set aside the coloration of her eyes and the seal itself for the moment, and turn all my attention on her. "A containment seal for what?"

"For me."

My eyes flit down to the massive, still incomplete seal, and the half dozen spirit and body restriction subseals. I swallow. "What do you mean?" This time she doesn't answer me, instead pointing at the space inside the shape she'd traced. I look back at it, and this time I don't glance over it as simply another piece of this demented puzzle. I really look at it.

It doesn't make any sense.

"That- Those aren't even subseals," I say, baffled. Normally, such a statement would have to be taken with a grain of salt considering that it's impossible to know all of the subseals that are used in Fuinjutsu, but this is different. The graceful, sweeping brushstrokes that permeate the art are absent, replaced by shaky curves and turns and randomly placed wavy lines. It looks like something a child would draw.

I squint at a particular set of scribblings (because what else could they be?), noticing that they seem a shade lighter than the other bits. Carefully, I run a finger along one and scrape some off onto my finger. I rub the residue between my fingers, and it crumbles further, becoming a fine red powder.

"Is this blood?" I ask incredulously, turning on my pink-haired teammate. She nods mutely. "Sakura, what do you think you're doing creating a blood seal? Do you know how dangerous these things can be?"

"Yes."

"You- You..." I flounder, but I never get a chance to find the reprimand I'm desperately searching for as she abruptly shoves the brush in her pocket, still wet with ink, and begins packing her scroll away.

"I'm sorry, I need to go," she apologizes, pressing a glowing blue thumb to the rolled up scroll and sealing it shut. "The sun is almost gone. I can't-" She cuts herself off there, and before I can say a word she's gathered up the scroll and taken off at a dead sprint out of the training ground.

And then there was one.

"I swear, this team is going to be the death of me," I grumble, pushing off the ground. I briefly survey the deserted lot, going over my choices for the night in my head. On the one hand, if I go straight home I can heat up some of that beef that Sasuke snagged from his place yesterday, and then I can spend the rest of the night seeing if I can't make some headway with the _Heavenly Chains_now that I have the exercise I need.

On the other hand, Ichiraku's is still open and I'm fucking stressed.

I hit the dusty trail back to Konoha at an easy walk, taking the rare opportunity of a silent training district to calm my nerves, reflect on a few things, and work on another balloon. The results of the latter aren't any better than they were an hour ago, but I'm comfortable with blaming that on my jostling making it more difficult. The various different landscapes come and go at a crawl, until I've exited the genin lots and moved into the grounds reserved for the shinobi clans of Konoha.

It's as I'm passing by the entrance to the Hyuuga grounds that I hear a familiar voice crying out from amidst the trees.

"_Eight Trigrams: Revolving Heaven_!" For a moment I'm stopped in my tracks simply by virtue of the fact that I've never heard Hinata say anything that loud, and then I continue to stand there while I process the name of the jutsu she just called out. A few seconds later, the same shout erupts. I consider the little wooden sign in the ground next to the obscured path warning off anyone that isn't a Hyuuga, wondering how fast I could escape if there's another Hyuuga in there besides Hinata.

Ah, what the hell.

I duck into the path, marvelling at the length of the thing and how completely the line of trees on either side shelter it from the training ground within. The Hyuuga are nothing if not paranoid, I suppose. The same shout pierces the canopy of leaves above me for a third time. I finally reach the end of the ridiculous path, exiting out into the rapidly fading orange shine of the sun.

I breath a sigh of relief when I see that Hinata is the only one here, a lone figure amongst a sea of training dummies. Even from this far away I can tell she's completely wiped, literally wobbling on her feet, but that doesn't stop her from falling into the Gentle Fist anyway. Suddenly, she throws her arms to the side and spins, once, twice, around and around until her features are a blur.

"_Eight Trigrams: Revolving Heaven_!"

I inhale sharply as her body suddenly explodes with chakra, becoming enshrouded by a spinning dome of faint blue light. A low thrum drifts through the air as the jutsu and Hinata spin faster and faster, tearing up entire patches of grass and earth and sending them flying. Then the dome's shape wavers. My eyes widen in horror as the jutsu begins wobbling dangerously, and duck back into the sheltered path just in time for a crack to rend the air and a shockwave of chakra to go rocketing down the path, through the space I'd just been.

I peek cautiously back into the training ground, and see Hinata on her hands and knees, panting. I creep forward, idly wondering how in the world the girl with the Byakugan hasn't spotted me yet. Said girl pushes herself unsteadily up onto her knees after gaining control of her breathing, then to her feet, and falls into the Gentle Fist stance again. I immediately dive behind a nearby training dummy, and wait until the next shockwave of chakra has passed before chancing another look at my former classmate.

She's only fallen to her knees this time, and her face is buried in her hands. Her shoulders are shaking.

"Hinata?" I call, concerned. "You okay?"

She jerks her head up as if she'd been burned, staring at me in shock. "Naruto?"

I wave. "Hey."

"What are you doing here?" She asks, bewildered. I reach up and scratch the back of my neck, smiling sheepishly.

"I kind of heard you practising your jutsu and got curious." I tilt my head. "So what's that thing supposed to do, anyway? It looked pretty cool before it fell apart."

She fiddles with her fingers, casting her eyes down. "It's supposed to act as a defensive technique. By spinning my chakra at high velocities, I can deflect almost any attack that tries to come through my barrier." She sighs in frustration. "I still can't maintain it long enough for it to be useful though, and I can't dispel it without falling down and becoming disoriented."

"How long have you been working on it?" I ask, taking the last few steps and offering her a hand, which she takes after a moment's hesitation. "Your face is all red- you look exhausted."

"I've been practising since I got out of team training," she admits. "A little less than an hour, I think."

"Yeah, you definitely need a break," I say decisively, grabbing her hand and walking back towards the Konoha path. "Here, I know this awesome place off district four that's open until midnight. They make the best ramen you ever-"

"I can't," she says, pulling her hand from mine. I frown at her, furrowing my brow.

"Why not?"

"I need to learn this. I can't afford to take breaks," Shy, quiet Hinata refuses me firmly. While my mind scrambles to make sense of this fact, the determined look slips away and she lowers her head. "I'm sorry."

"Why's it so important for you to learn?" I ask curiously, ignoring the unnecessary apology. "Do you need it for a mission or something?"

She shakes her head, a sad frown pulling at her lips. "It's for my father. The _Revolving Heaven_is one of our clan's most prized techniques, and he just recently began to teach me it. It's a great honor, and I want... I want to impress him, by learning it faster than he expects me to."

I make a small noise of realization. "I see."

And I do.

I may be an orphan, but there have been dozens of times that I've wanted to impress the old man with some breakthrough in my studies or another. Whether it be proving my skills in stealth by infiltrating this building, or proving my prowess in Taijutsu by beating that upperclassman into the ground, I've always wanted to prove to the old man that I can be even more than _he_thinks I can be. Hell, my entire tenure in the Academy was pretty much an attempt to impress him, what with our bet and all.

I can definitely understand what she means. And because I know how painful it is to try to impress your old man and fail, I can also do this.

"In that case, you want some help?"

She looks sharply at me, her pale lavender eyes a sharp contrast to Sakura's gray green ones, and her mouth works soundlessly for a second. "I don't think that-"

"Ah, c'mon," I say, grinning. "You said you wanted to impress your dad, right? And two heads are better than one."

"It's a secret technique," she protests feebly. "I can't even talk to some Hyuuga about it, let alone an outsider."

Oh no you don't. "Please. I saw you try it out, Hinata. I couldn't even copy it if I wanted to." I hold a palm out, channeling some chakra to rustle her hair. "Remember?"

She purses her lips. "Still..."

"Besides, Kakashi hasn't been letting me train since we got back from our first mission. If I don't do something soon I'm going to go insane," I say dramatically, prompting a giggle out of her. "It's a win win. I get some training in, and you impress your father. What do you say?"

Her fingers set to poking again, but this time there's a little smile on her face, and she nods. "Okay. Yes."


	10. Chapter 10

I make the trip to training ground seven in high spirits the next day, despite my lack of sleep and pressing lateness, with a bounce in my step and a satisfied little grin on my face. After these last few days of not being able to get any real training in and trying to figure out Sakura's sudden insanity, Hinata's special jutsu had been just what I needed to take my mind off things and relax. I haven't gotten as much sleep as usual, but I fell asleep as soon as my head hit the pillow last night, which is better than the last few nights where I stayed up for hours trying to puzzle out that skeletal nukenin's jutsu and shape transformation and Kazu's genjutsu and-

Yeah. That training session with Hinata was nice.

Speak of the devil, I throw a wave to Team 8 as I pass their training ground, which they return with varying levels of enthusiasm. Their sensei, a smoking hot jounin whose name I never learned, waves back at me like a normal person. Kiba shouts a boisterous greeting followed by a taunt which his sensei promptly swats him over the head for, and Shino just nods. Hinata turns away, no doubt poking her fingers together while she does it.

But that's Hinata for you. That girl is the Sasuke of the Hyuuga clan, I swear.

Having reached my stop, I veer off into the entrance of training ground seven, bracing myself for Kakashi's cheerful beratings. But to my surprise I find the place deserted. I glance around warily- I wouldn't put it past Hatake to set up an ambush for me as punishment for my lateness. He'd probably call it a training exercise and have Sasuke and Sakura in on it too, the prick. When a few minutes have passed and the rounds are still empty, though, I start wondering.

I can understand Kakashi and Sasuke being late. Kakashi is pretty spotty with his punctuality, and Sasuke had that thing with his brother last night. From what he tells me, those things can get pretty intense. They might still be going at it if Itachi doesn't have anything to do today.

But where's Sakura?

I ponder this for a while, standing there in the middle of the clearing, thinking up all sorts of horrible possibilities in my head. I almost convince myself to go and track her down, but then I realize I don't know where she lives. Finally I sigh and shake it all off.

"I'll worry about it in an hour," I mutter resolutely, and turn heel to leave. If they all decide to miraculously show up while I'm gone, then good for them. I was the closest to being on time.

The path to Konoha's public hybrid library is a familiar one, even though I've never actually been inside the building before. It sits on a corner leading into the market square and stands almost as tall as the Hokage Tower itself, so I always get a solid eyeful of it on my way home from the Academy, or more recently from training. The civilian crowd is still waking up, so I pass through the square unhindered, relishing in the ample personal spaces between myself and the other early risers.

The reason I've never been to the hybrid library before, which beats out the one the Academy offers on all accounts, is two part. First, you're not allowed to touch a single scroll in the shinobi section of the library without shinobi identification, which means civilian reading only for Academy students. Second, even as a genin you're only allowed access to general texts that don't involve the actual arts, some scrolls on public (and thus subpar) Taijutsu styles, and non-elemental jutsu of D-rank or below.

In short, it has nothing to offer me as a shinobi until I make chunin, and what little else I need info on I can find easily enough at the Academy without the added hassle of a library card and strict, chunin-enforced return dates. The only problem is now I've run into something that the Academy can't help me with. Several somethings, actually.

It's been a busy month.

I shoulder the grand entrance doors open, stepping in onto plush red carpet, and simply admire the place. The walls are lined with dozens of curving bookcases that climb almost to the domed glass ceiling, filled to the brim with all manner of text. There's a circle of empty space in the middle of the library allowing me to peer up at the rising sun through the glass ceiling, and surrounding me on both sides are two grand spiralling staircases belonging to the civilian side and the shinobi side of the library respectively.

I just stand there, basking in the atmosphere of the place for a while. Then a civilian walks by dressed in a tidy civilian school uniform. He takes one look at me and my clothes that I have yet to wash since I put them on at the hospital, and makes for the civilian staircase with his nose turned up. Tch.

I stalk off in the opposite direction, taking the stairs two at a time as I climb the levels. I bypass several combat oriented floors without a second glance, until I reach a floor about a quarter of the way up the staircase labelled Fuinjutsu. I step out onto yet more red carpeting, and am immediately staggered by the sheer magnitude of scrolls and books. There have to be at least three times as many scrolls in one of those shelves as the Academy's entire Fuinjutsu section!

A plaque labelled "Novice" on one of the bookshelves catches my eye, and I quickly head over to it, remembering my mission in coming here. I go down the line, quicker than I probably should, flickering from scroll to book to scroll, mentally noting several pieces to check out later, until I land upon one particularly beefy tome with the word "Subseals" emblazoned across its spine in a flowing white font.

"Gotcha." I pluck the book out, exit the maze of Fuinjutsu, and grab a seat at a nearby table. Flipping it open to its table of contents, I note the page number and proceed to the section of the book devoted to listing the subseals themselves out for easy use. I notice right away that the list is far more extensive than the book that I looked over from the Academy, and I feel a little bit of hope bloom in my chest.

I scan through the first indicated page with no luck. The second page goes by similarly. And the third, the fourth, the...

"Damn it," I growl, slamming the book shut. I return to the bookshelf and grab another book, this one about half the size of the first, and look through it with identical results. Rinse and repeat. Finally, after I've accumulated a pile of half a dozen books and a neat little pile of scrolls, I scowl fiercely, slap both of them off the table, and bury my head in my hands, simultaneously disgusted and distraught.

"You alright, kid?" Someone asks. I lift my head to see a woman with short brown hair in a chunin vest standing in front of my table with her arms crossed over her chest, watching me with an expression that's half curiosity and half annoyance. I'm in the middle of a sarcastic reply when I notice the bright red bandana tied around her left bicep, and shut my mouth with a sharp click.

See, the shinobi side of the library is a bit different than the civilian side. Where the civilian side has one librarian stationed on the second floor to check out books for that entire half of the place, the shinobi side has a librarian/supervisor for every floor. And depending on which floor you're on they may be a chunin or a jounin, so that they can be counted on to kick the ass of anyone that tries anything funny. They wear red bandanas on their arms so they're easy to find, and they don't enjoy their turf being abused.

I get out of my chair and pick up my books and scrolls.

"Sorry," I say quietly. I still have a couple things I want to pick up here, and getting myself kicked out will pretty thoroughly prevent me from doing so. "I'm trying to find this thing, but none of these books have it."

"I saw you going in and out of the Novice section. It might be somewhere more advanced," she suggests. I shake my head.

"Nah, it's nothing fancy. I'm just looking for some subseals."

"That's it?" She grins. "Here, why don't you describe them to me and I'll see what I can do."

Oh, that's right. The supervisors usually specialize in the skill they're presiding over. There's been a Fuinjutsu specialist here the whole time. Brilliant, Uzumaki.

"Well, they're kind of hard to explain," I say sheepishly. "Do you have a scroll I could use?" In response she tosses me a small blank scroll seemingly from nowhere, which I decide to chalk up to storage seals. I pull out my sealing brush and ink blot from my weapons pouch and get to sketching.

I didn't have very long to look at Sakura's seal yesterday, but it was enough. My hand stumbles and jerks across the paper, bringing to life the demented restriction seal one malformed symbol at a time. After the first couple of strokes the chunin moves around the table and leans over my shoulder, her brow furrowed and her eyes intent.

"Do you have any ink that's not black?" I ask when I've finished the shell. She hands me a small blot of red ink wordlessly, and I start on the part my teammate is supposedly trying to seal. When it's all said and done I lean back and flip the brush around, jabbing at each of the restriction subseals that I was able to pick out yesterday. "I recognize all of these, though they're being used for something I've never seen them used for before- they're all supplements. Everything else is a mystery to me."

"What does the red represent?" she asks after a long silence.

"Blood."

"Are you qualified?" she asks immediately.

I shake my head. "Nope."

"And you seriously expect me to help you with this?" She turns away from the seal just long enough to give me a deadpan look.

"To be fair, you offered," I say, grinning. She scoffs, and traces the seals making up the containment... shape. Since the ink she gave me is bright red, the distinction is much more clear than with Sakura's.

"Even if you were qualified," she continues pensively. "I've never seen a seal like this before. You said the restriction subseals were supplements- that makes this one big restricting seal, right?" I nod. "Do you know what it's supposed to be restricting, specifically?"

"It's for my teammate."

She looks sharply at me. "Excuse me?" And suddenly my lack of qualifications doesn't matter.

"She wants to seal whatever that is-" I point to the red portion of the seal. "Away."

"Do you know if it's a living thing she's trying to seal, or just an inanimate object?" she asks, pondering the blood seal. I blink.

"Not a clue," I say honestly, prompting her to frown.

"Come to think of it, this doesn't even have the subseals required for a storage scroll," she mutters.

"Well, it's not finished yet, I don't think," I say. She nods slowly.

"Do you know anything about her background with seals?"

I shrug. "From what I've seen they're kind of her specialty, though this is the first containment seal I've seen her working on. Only..."

"What?" she asks sharply, capturing me with honey golden eyes. I hesitate, considering my next words.

"We had our first mission a couple weeks ago," I say. "We were clearing out some bandits-"

"You're a heavy assault team?" she cuts in, puzzled.

"Er, yeah." She nods after a moment, waving a hand for me to go on. "Anyway, we got separated from each other, and she got ambushed along with one of the genin from the veteran team. My other teammate managed to save them, but not before the nukenin that ambushed them did something. She says it wasn't a genjutsu, but..." I sigh frustratedly. "My other teammate, the one that saved them, saw it happen, and it didn't look like the nukenin even touched them.

"Since then she's been acting weird. She's scared of shadows, she looks like she hasn't slept since we got back, and she just works on this seal all day during team training." I wave a hand at the seal. "Point is, she's not in her right mind. Whatever she's trying to do with this, I'm not even sure if it'll work."

"Then what are you trying to accomplish here?" She asks quietly.

"I'm trying to help her finish it, I guess." I lean back in my chair, balancing on two wooden legs. "I get the feeling whatever it's for, it's going to help her."

"You mean she's trying to seal something away inside of her?" She asks in disbelief.

"It's the only reason I can think of for her to be so obsessed with it," I reply helplessly.

"I- Has she been to the hospital since you got back from your mission?"

"Yeah." I scowl. "Nobody could find anything wrong with her, so they discharged her. Same with the girl from the veteran genin team."

She stares at the seal for a long while after that, tracing this symbol or that subseal, muttering under her breath. At one point she walks up the steps and comes back down a few minutes later with a scroll from the chunin level Fuinjutsu section tucked under her arm. She unfurls it and lines it up parallel with my sketch and after that goes back to muttering.

The sun is making a steady climb over the glass dome of the library when she leans back against another table and shakes her head, giving me an apologetic look. "I'm sorry. I've got no idea."

"At least you tried. That's more than I was expecting to get," I say, smiling gratefully at her in spite of my disappointment.

"Your jounin sensei might know someone who can help you," she suggests, but I've already considered and dismissed the thought. Kakashi may be almost as bad as the average Hyuuga, but he looked just as concerned as I was yesterday. If he had a contact he could call in, he'd have done so by now.

I tell her I'll ask him anyway and walk back out onto the spiralling staircase, heading up. This time I'm not sure which floor I'm looking for exactly. It could be part of just about any floor for all I know. It might even be on the civilian side of the library.

Yet when I make it to the last floor which my headband will grant me access to, the sign says it clear as day: Bijuu. I'm not even three steps in when I stop and gape.

There are so many bookcases! So many shelves! So much reading!

"Where were all of you when I was in the Academy?" I breath, moving forward into the nearest row and beginning my quest.

My goal in coming to this floor is finding a scroll talking about the Uzumaki and their Bijuu jutsu. It's unlikely the exact one Sakura was talking about will be here, since she got hers from the Academy (and which still hasn't been returned), but there are so many different things to choose from here, at least one of them has to have something right?

I go from shelf to shelf, mentally noting more and more scrolls or books to come back for later, and picking up some that look too interesting for me to wait for. Eventually I shuffle over to a table and drop my load, grimacing. I twist my arms this way and that, stretching them, and chance a glance up at the glass dome. The sun is shining directly overtop it. My eyes fly open wide.

"It's already been three hours!?"

* * *

Long, spindly branches and large green smack my face and neck as I book it the last few feet to training ground seven, no doubt leaving thousands of little red marks in their wake. Somewhere beneath me the words to a katon jutsu are shouted and I hastily hop a few branches higher before continuing on my way. Whoever it is, they probably wouldn't be stupid enough to use a katon on the forest biome itself, but you never know with some people.

I really shouldn't even be doing this- tree hopping through the training ground district is best left to badass shinobi that could care less who's practising what beneath them. And idiots, of course. You never know what might happen. And trust me when I say, some of the techniques that get tested out in this section of the village are freaking ridiculous.

Luckily, though, I break through the shroud of leaves and bark with just a few red marks to show for it, landing right next to the row of vertical logs. I hunch over, breath several deep breaths, and straighten up. Kakashi is crouched on the log farthest away from me, his face in his little orange book. I sweep the clearing, but Sakura and Sasuke are still nowhere to be found.

"Are we in the middle of a drill?" I ask hesitantly, after a pregnant silence. Kakashi's eye appears above the book, wide with surprise.

"Oh, hello Naruto," he says. "You're the first one to show up, actually."

Still? My hand strays to my weapons pouch, where I stowed the sketch of Sakura's seal. "Have you checked up on the others?" I ask.

Kakashi nods. "Mhm. Sasuke is still recovering from the training he did with his brother last night, and Sakura's mother told me that she's come down with a sickness."

"Wait, how did you know-"

"I'm a jounin, Naruto," he answers my unfinished question, a condescending smirk curling behind his mask.

"Yeah, whatever," I grunt. "So is training off for the day?"

"Nope!" Kakashi says, snapping his book shut. "We're still focusing on individualized training, so your teammates are just going to have to catch up to you when they get back." I grin.

"Cool. So what are we doing?"

Please, for the love of god don't say shape manipulation.

"We're revamping your Taijutsu style!" Kakashi says happily, pocketing the book.

"Wait, what? What's wrong with my Taijutsu?" I ask defensively.

"Several things," Kakashi assures me. "The biggest problem is that it's the kind of fighting style that a juggernaut would use. And you're definitely not a juggernaut."

"What are you trying to say?" I say, narrowing my eyes at him. "I finished first in the Academy for Taijutsu. Who says I can't be a juggernaut?" And all of a sudden, Kakashi's expression becomes flat, his elusive serious personality coming to the forefront.

"Your chakra defect," he says flatly. I open my mouth, but he continues before I can formulate a comeback. "I noticed all of the chakra you spent while we were travelling to our objective on our last mission. The amount of chakra you have at your disposal is frankly unbelievable, but you can't utilize it to enhance your physical attributes like a normal shinobi can. You've obviously found ways around it, which is impressive in and of itself, but it still isn't enough for the fighting style you have right now." He crosses his arms. "You can enhance your speed and the power of your blows all you want, but if you get hit, the wind isn't going to strengthen your muscles and let you take it.

"You had your opponent at an elemental disadvantage on that mission, and you still sustained near fatal injuries, because you were half his size with no reliable means of taking a hit and you still tried to fight him head on." He locks eyes with me, and though his next words are no less harsh, they're not quite as stinging. "You're a glass cannon, Naruto. You need to learn how to fight like one."

… They still sting pretty damn bad, though.

"That one actually hurt," I say, wincing. Kakashi just smiles. "So, uh, where do we start?"

"You're going to start by paying a trip to the hospital," he says, his smile growing wider.

"You're funny," I deadpan. Smile. "Why the hell do I need to go back to the hospital? I'm fine!" To prove my point, I walk quickly back and forth, do some squats, a backflip or two.

"Doctor's orders," he says, unmoved. "Before you can do any physically strenuous training you need to check back in for a physical." He reaches into his pocket and pulls out a little slip of paper with a room number and a name scribbled on it, and hands it to me. "Hurry back!"

"I hate you."

I stomp into the ground floor of Konoha's hospital a short while later, slapping the slip of paper down on the front desk and glaring darkly at the woman sitting behind it. She plucks up the paper unphased, no doubt used to all sorts of disgruntled shinobi attempting to kill her with their eyes- well, maybe not the Uchiha- and nods at the neat row of chairs on the other side of the front room.

"I'll have you called up as soon as there's a medic nin free," she says primly. I grumble something not at all complimentary under my breath and grab a seat nestled in the corner of the room. I pull my sketch out of my pocket, wishing I'd brought some balloons or my scroll on the _Heavenly Chains_ with me, and stare at it.

I don't actually think I'm going to find anything new amidst the tangle of broken symbols and not-subseals, but it makes me feel better than staring at a plain white wall.

As the minutes drag on, my attention slowly gravitates towards the blood seal portion of the construct. I squint at it, and for a second I could swear that it's moving. Just an illusion, I immediately think, just the lines blurring together, and my lack of sleep making my brain all fuzzy. And yet... I lean in closer to it, until my vision is filled with red ink, and suddenly the image changes. The symbols begin to writhe on the page, curling and twisting and coalescing into...

"Uzumaki Naruto?" My head jerks up, bringing me face to face with a concerned looking man wearing the typical get-up of a medic nin in a nonmilitary environment. I blink rapidly, turn back down to look at the scroll, and see nothing but nonsense symbols. "Are you alright?" He asks gently.

"Uh, yeah." I cough, my throat suddenly dry, and quickly roll the scroll back up, shoving it in my weapons pouch. "I didn't get much sleep last night," I say in response to the look on the man's face, and after a tense moment he nods.

"Follow me."

We wind through the maze that is Konoha's hospital, walking up three different staircases to a floor I've never been to before, and turning down dozens of different hallways until we come upon an unlabelled room. The medic shoulders it open and ushers me in. He flicks on a light switch, illuminating a small cot and a desk with a clipboard and a bunch of unorganized files strewn over it.

"Have a seat," The medic orders, rifling through the papers. "Ah, here we are," he says, brandishing a crumpled paper triumphantly and then clipping it to his board.

What follows is your average shinobi check up, which is really no different from a civilian check up except for the fact that the bar for wellness is set significantly higher in the physical department. Except because, as Kakashi said, I can't use my chakra how normal shinobi can, I'm physically only as strong as a very, very fit thirteen year old. So aside from a quick test to make sure I don't feel any burning when I channel my chakra- which I learned was caused by extreme chakra exhaustion- I'm given a civilian physical.

Joy.

"Well, Uzumaki-san, I'm not sure how, but you're in perfect shape," The medic nin eventually says, astonished. "The raiton damage that your muscles sustained have completely healed in the span of a few days, and it seems like your chakra exhaustion has been taken care of as well. You're sure you didn't see a medic nin after you were discharged?"

"Positive."

"Well then, I suppose we'll just have to say you're a very lucky young man and leave it at that," he says, smiling, but I can tell he isn't satisfied with my answer. What else am I supposed to say, though? I heal fast.

He scribbles out a pass for me to train again which I hastily take, eager to start catching up with Sasuke again as soon as possible. I leave the office just short of jogging, wasting at least five minutes navigating the dizzying array of halls before I reach the staircase. I'm picking my way through the second floor when three familiar faces come walking around the corner at the other side of the hall. Neji, Lee, and Gai.

"Hey Lee," I say, waving a hand. The friendly genin tears his gaze from the floor, startled. Immediately I notice the redness rimming his eyes, and an uncomfortable weight settles in my stomach.

"Hello Naruto-san," he replies in kind, but it sounds hollow in comparison to the boisterous exclamations that I had grown to associate with him on our mission. "What are you doing here?"

I hesitate. Why does he sound so... beaten down? "I had to get a physical." Suddenly Neji storms past me, his hair obscuring his eyes from sight, and disappears around a corner.

"What's going on?" I ask the remaining two, bewildered. Instead of answering my question, Lee bows, speaking again in a quavering voice.

"I have been meaning to apologize, on behalf of myself and my teammate, for our actions during our joint mission. It was an unforgivable responsibility to leave you and Uchiha-san while the mission was still in progress, and I-" He chokes off, and doesn't continue. Just shakes his head, murmurs an apology, and walks swiftly past me after Neji, his head ducked low.

I turn to Gai, imploring with my eyes for some answers. He sighs, staring after Lee with a look of intense sorrow on his face. "Please excuse them," he says. "They have both been dealt a cruel blow."

"What are you talking about?" I ask helplessly. Lee disappears around the corner, and Gai turns back to me.

"Tenten attempted to commit suicide this morning," he says quietly. "She has been confined to intensive care."

I feel my heart drop into my stomach. "What?"

He doesn't say anything in response to that, and I'm not even sure what I want him to say. He just clasps me briefly on the shoulder and walks after his students, leaving me in the middle of the hall. My mind races, having made a terrifying connection almost as soon as he'd finished his sentence.

_There was blood on her cheeks too when I checked her, but I couldn't wake her up. I think whatever he was trying to do to Sakura, he did to her first._

I practically sprint over to the intensive care wing of the hospital, poking my head into rooms until I find a civilian doctor who knows which room Tenten is being kept in. A minute later I stumble to a halt in front of a closed door, jerk it open, and stare.

She's been covered in a mound of blankets, leaving her head the only visible bit of her body. At least a dozen chords snake their way from various machines underneath the blankets, and there's a clear gas mask fastened over her mouth. I stand in the doorway for an eternity, just watching her, wondering what I'm doing here. Eventually I inch into the room, pulling the door shut behind me. Even though it's just past noon the curtains have been drawn and there are no lights on, so the room is dark save for the thin rays of sunlight knifing through the blinds.

I come up beside her, and notice at once that she's sporting bags under her eyes even darker than Sakura's, and her breath is shaky and halting, despite the anesthetics that are no doubt being pumped into her veins. I reach out, but my hand stops before it touches her face. I exhale slowly, and rest a finger on her eyelid. I slide it up.

An eye so gray it looks black stares up at me.

"_Shit_," I curse, stumbling backwards. Sakura's own gray-green eyes appear in my mind's eye, and Sasuke's words from the day I got out of the hospital ring in my ears. I stare with wide eyes at the unconscious girl for a moment, then turn and flee from the room.

I burst out of the hospital and turn my head side to side, quickly calculating the distance from here to training ground seven and from here to the Academy. Then I leap up onto the nearest rooftop and dash straight for the Academy, wondering what day it is and praying they're not on a day off. I leap clear over the chunin standing guard at the gate, ignoring his warning shout and speeding through the halls. I reach a familiar door and throw it open without hesitation, striding into the room.

"Naruto?" Iruka says, bewildered, from his place at the chalkboard. At least thirty little heads turn towards me, but I pay them no mind as I hop down the steps two at a time.

"Iruka-sensei," I say hurriedly, stopping in front of his desk. "You need to tell me where Sakura lives, now."

"What? Naruto, I'm in a class. You can't just-"

"Now," I say harshly. "This is important."

Right then the gate guard appears at in the doorway, glaring daggers at me. "Just what in the hell do you think you're doing, kid?"

"Ah, it's fine shinobi-san," Iruka calls. The chunin halts, having made it halfway down the steps, and furrows his eyebrows.

"You're sure?"

"Yes, Naruto's a former student of mine. He just came to pay me a visit." Iruka assures him. The guard hesitates, but leaves with a nod and one last dirty look in my direction. Iruka begins rummaging through his desk, producing a small box of papers which he quickly pulls a folder from labelled "Haruno Sakura". I tap my foot impatiently against the hardwood floor, continuing to ignore the eyes on my back, until he pulls a neon green paper out of the folder and holds it out.

"I expect you to explain to me what this is all about later," he says quietly, and I nod in acquiescence, committing the address to memory and promptly bolting back up the stairs and out of the room.

Sakura's apartment is thankfully close to the Academy, sitting just one district over amongst the nicer apartment buildings. I weave through unfamiliar streets, repeating her address over in over in my head, a steady mantra. I finally skid to a stop in front of her complex, and without a second thought start scaling the outside of it, peering into every window and balcony on my way up.

I'm about halfway up the building when I come upon a balcony leading into a dark room with a small figure crouched on the floor. I pause in my ascent, watch as the figure shuffles. I slowly climb up and over the balcony, creeping forward.

"Sakura?" The figure doesn't reply, doesn't even react. The weight in my stomach, which hasn't gotten any lighter since I left the hospital, grows even heavier.

Then the smell of blood hits me.

"Sakura!" I dart into the room, falling into a crouch in front of her and grabbing her shoulders. "What's wrong? Why are you bleeding?"

She jerks back, something flies out of her hands and clatters off the wall. I squint through the darkness, and faintly make out the edges of a... scalpel? What the-

"Oh, it's just you," Sakura says, pulling my attention back to her, sounding profoundly relieved.

"What do you mean it's just me? Who were you expecting?" I shake my head. "No, what are you _doing?_"

"I was testing my seal," she murmurs, almost too softly for me to hear despite being inches away from me. She holds her arms out, and that's when I notice the cuts running up both of them from her fingertips to her shoulders. Familiar jagged shapes.

"What do you mean testing it?" I manage to say after a stunned silence.

"I had to make sure the blood wouldn't run," she says, and maybe it's the lack of light in the room, but her eyes look darker than they did yesterday. "I had to make sure it wouldn't escape."


	11. Chapter 11

I rock back on the heels of my feet and stare into Sakura's green-gray eyes. Almost immediately she twists around and reaches for the scalpel again. I just watch her, stunned into silence, until she makes another cut near her shoulder, and blood creeps to the surface of her skin. She twists around and grabs something behind her and sprinkles it over the new cut.

"What is that?" I ask, latching onto this new development desperately.

"Sugar to prevent the blood from running," she says, making another sharply curving cut all the way up to the base of her collarbone. As easily as if she were making a brush stroke. As if I'm not sitting a foot away, having a mental breakdown right along with her.

"Alright, that's enough." My hand flashes out and I grab the scalpel out of her hand none too gently. She shrinks back with a pained hiss. "You're going to the hospital. Right now." I say firmly. To hell with the doctors and their diagnosis. I'll make them look at her a hundred more times if that's what it takes to find out what's wrong with this girl.

"What?" she asks, panic coloring her voice. "No, you can't, it's-"

"I could give a shit," I growl, and forcefully gather her in my arms, standing up and turning back towards the balcony. The pink-haired girl thrashes hysterically in my grip, moaning and begging for me to let her go in a manner that reminds me disturbingly of the skeletal nukenin before Sasuke smothered him. I step out onto the balcony, into the midday sunshine.

Sakura shrieks in agony. Her nails claw at my eyes, and while I'm flinching away from them she kicks me in the gut. I stagger to one side, wheezing, and she bursts free from my grip and bolts back into the darkness of her room, taking back the scalpel in the process.

My back hits the balcony and I gape at her shadowed figure. "What is wrong with you?" I gesture wildly into the room. "What about the shadows!? You couldn't even stay outside after sunset yesterday and now you don't care?" She shakes her head and mumbles something, but I can't quite catch it.

I rub at my stomach and creep warily forward again. "What'd you say?"

"It's changing."

My stomach rolls. "It's what?"

"It doesn't need to try to get in anymore," she whispers hollowly. "It's different now."

I can count on one hand the times in my life where I've had no idea what to do. The instant after the old man told me about my defect. The first time I had a crimson dream. The day Sasuke came to me in tears because his father had finally come out and said that he was a disappointment. Everything else, I've always had a solution for. Whether it's a logical solution with a high chance for success or some half-baked plan I came up with on the spot, I've always had something to do.

But now as my teammate carves the symbols to a seal that can't exist into her skin, I realize I have no idea what to do.

"God, Sakura," I finally croak. "You need- You need help. We need to go back to the hospital, or the old man, or..."

"I _can't_, Naruto." I look up sharply, snapped from my reverie. Not at her words themselves, but how they're said. She sounds terrified- literally insane with fear.

"Why not?"

"Because if I don't do this now, I'll be too late." She sprinkles sugar on her latest cut with a shaking hand. Then she looks up at me with eyes so wide I can see the grays of them. "I can feel it, corrupting things, changing me. If I wait any longer..."

"I thought you said you were just testing it?"

"Testing to make sure my blood wouldn't ruin it. It didn't."

I almost leave right then, hop up onto the balcony and scale the apartment building to flag down a patrol team of medic Anbu. I almost write her hysterics off as just that- hysterics of a disturbed young girl. Irrational fears that are driving her to skip out on her duties as a shinobi to mutilate herself. I come so very close to doing that.

But then I remember the haunted look on Team 9's faces. I remember Tenten herself, obscured by a mountain of blankets and wires and cringing in a constant, unseen agony.

I turn back to my teammate, the bizarre contortions of the blood seal I'd seen while in the hospital burning in my head, and I wonder just what in the hell I'm dealing with here.

I crouch down beside her again. "Do you need my help?" I ask quietly.

She pauses, scalpel poised just above her left shoulder, and nods. "The scroll is on my bed."

I go and grab it off the mess of a bed, finding it neatly rolled up. I hold it up and stare at it. It occurs to me that she hasn't even been looking at it. She's been carving symbols into her head by memory alone. In the world of sealing, those who do that have either committed the components of the seal so thoroughly to memory that they could do it while drunk and half dead, or they have a death wish. I find that both possibilities are equally horrifying.

"What happens if this doesn't work?" I ask. I don't even want to know the answer, not really. All it will do is make me feel even less sure of myself. Because even if it's not serious, how far can I trust her?

The scalpel swirls down her arm. "It wins."

"No pressure, then," I mutter, savagely unfurling the scroll and spreading it out on the floor. Then I pull out my sealing brush and my ink tab and get to work.

I've only ever drawn one sealing circle before. It was a direct copy of the seal decorating my stomach translated onto my hardwood floor to make it easier for me to study and pick apart. Of course I didn't actually do any picking apart, and my studies haven't taken me anywhere since then- no, the important thing I learned from that experience is that sealing circles are stupidly complex.

I sweep my brush across Sakura's pristine white carpet, staining it black with ink, and mentally compare Sakura's creation with the circle I drew years ago. The thing about sealing circles is that everything has to fit together. You can't leave anything hanging and just hope the chain will stop after it's served its purpose. It all has to connect back to the center, to the purpose of the seal. I've looked at plenty of examples in textbooks over the years, but I've never seen a better example of this than my mystery seal.

So as my hand dances haltingly across the carpet I hold the seal up to my memory, and what I find shocks me.

It fits. It all fits. I lean back over the scroll, memorizing another section to trace, and as I do I see once again that it connects to an entirely different branch of symbols, just like the one before it connected to it. I can't vouch for the purpose of the symbols and how they sync together, for obvious reasons, but on the other hand I can't do that with half the subseals on my stomach either. The general shape of it, though... As I piece together more and more of it on the carpet, the deranged mass of nothing slowly coalesces into something that actually works.

After an eternity of unravelling I sit back on my haunches and glare at the scroll, looking it over three times to make sure I haven't missed anything. I don't find anything. Just the two final wavering lines connecting the outer circle to the blood seal portion. I take a deep breath and turn to Sakura.

She stares expectantly back at me, her dress bunched up around her waist, spidery lines of crimson red dancing beneath her collarbone and around the curves of her breasts. I clench my eyes shut and breath again. God damn it, Uzumaki, what are you even doing-

"I'm ready," she says, voice shaking with anticipation. I force myself to move forward.

I make my way carefully into the circle of black ink and draw the first line, connected to one of the hanging restriction subseals. She taps her thigh and I take that as my route to the dangling red line just above her belly button. I connect ink to blood and move onto the second line, shuffling behind her and connecting the second line to a thread of blood on her back.

"There," I rasp. "What now?"

"Get out of the circle." Her voice isn't the only thing that's shaking now. Her body practically vibrates with... I'm not sure what. Eagerness, fear, or simple tension? I get out of the circle. "Now channel chakra into the free hook on the outside of it."

I look down at the lone gash of ink sitting unconnected outside of the circle."That won't work," I say. Doubt begins to gnaw at my determination. How am I supposed to know what this seal will do? What does "I lose" mean? Why didn't I just take her to the hospital? "You can't activate seals with wind chakra."

"Doesn't matter," she says, shaking her head rapidly back and forth. "It only needs the body and the spirit. The chakra doesn't matter. Just channel your chakra."

I sit there for a long moment, just looking at my position. At my situation. I stand up abruptly "Okay, you know what? No." I jab a finger at her. "I don't know why I went along this far with this to begin with, but I'm not going another step until you tell me what the fuck is happening to you. Tell me what "it" is, and tell me how this seal is going to deal with it. And so help me god if you don't I will tie you up and drag you by your hair-"

"Naruto! _Please!_" Sakura cries in a strangled voice. She stares up at me, her green-gray eyes boring into my own. Her eyes, which are quickly being turned from green-gray to solid, murky gray. Tenten's eyes. It's happening right in front of me.  
_  
To construct and utilize a seal that one hasn't learned inside and out or used in the past is more than unwise. It is suicidal._

Oh to hell with this.

I fall into a crouch and slam my hand down on the hook. Chakra surges through me, a familiar giddy presence rushing down my arm and out my hand. The circle hums and the sound of rushing wind fills the air as the seal absorbs my chakra, true to Sakura's word. I don't have time to think about what that could mean before light fills the room and Sakura cries out in pain.

My chakra sets the blood seal glowing a furious crimson, running a blazing path along the symbols until her whole torso is glowing red. I try to jerk my hand back, but the seal holds it in place somehow. It continues to suck greedily at my chakra, and all of a sudden eight points erupt in radiant blue pillars of light. The restriction subseals.

The circle claws at more and more of my chakra. Wind moans through the room, rustling the scroll containing Sakura's outline of the seal and sending it rolling towards the sealing circle. I twist awkwardly and kick it out of the way. The pull grows stronger, and my chakra howls, sending Sakura's long pink hair whipping around. I grit my teeth and yank again at my hand, but it's no good. Then something happens, and I forget all about my hand.

Black ichor is leaking out of my teammate's eyes and down her cheeks, and I can feel it. The day Iruka taught us about chakra sensing immediately jumps to my mind, but I've never had that talent. Something tells me this isn't some hidden talent I've just unlocked- it's whatever that is. It's strong enough that it doesn't matter. It's wrong enough. I shrink back as far away from the seal as my hand will allow me, and then the ichor touches the blood seal.

A sound escapes from Sakura's lips, hardly loud enough to hear over my raging chakra. A cold shiver runs down my spine. It goes so far beyond agonized that it almost hurts me to hear it.

As soon as the ichor touches the cuts Sakura had given herself the crimson glow darkens, becoming a dark, dark gray. The mix spreads further along the seal as more and more ichor runs down into it. A familiar burn begins to build in my stomach, but the seal keeps on pulling, and my hand holds firm. Finally, when the cuts littering her naked torso are nearly all grey, the last drops of ichor fall from Sakura's eyes, and the tear stains on her cheeks melt down into the seal, pulled by some invisible force.  
I clench my eyes shut as the eight pillars of light flare, and feel the pull on my chakra cease all at once. I yank my hand back and crack an eye open hesitantly.

Sakura, wavering dangerously from her place kneeling in the circle, gasps raggedly, and the gray seals carved into her flesh move, crawling past her collarbone and up her neck. In their wake once cut skin bubbles and smooths, becoming pale and unmarred. The symbols crawl up her chin and past her cheeks, framing her face for one disturbing moment before gathering at her forehead. I watch as they bunch together, overlap over each other, until finally her skin stops bubbling and the eight pillars of light fade.

Two simple black lines sit starkly contrasting against the pale skin of her forehead, each curling from one temple and meeting in the middle. They intertwine there, then curl around the other to the opposite temple.

"... Is that it?" I whisper into the silence. Sakura's eyes flutter open. Pure grass green.

"Yes," she breathes. "It's gone."

"So you're cured now?" I ask cautiously. She nods.

"It's not-" she says, but mid-sentence her eyes roll up into the back of her head and she collapses face first onto the carpet. I scramble forward and press my finger to her throat, but her pulse thrums steadily beneath her skin. I roll her over onto her back and lift one of her eyelids up, just in case, but they're still green. I sigh, and a weeks worth of anxiety drains out of me along with it.

A gloved hand falls onto my shoulder, gripping it painfully. I twist sharply around and see a shinobi decked out in Anbu attire, mask and all, connected to it. I take a few seconds to consider what this shinobi is thinking right now, with me hunched over a half naked girl in the middle of a sealing circle.

"I can explain-" Well, no I can't. "This isn't what it looks like!"

* * *

After a dizzying series of shunshin the Anbu, Hawk, knocks twice at the solid oaken door leading to the Hokage's office. I don't hear anything from inside, but a moment later the Anbu standing guard opens the door and Hawk shoves me in. I stumble inside, looking up and seeing the Hokage regarding me with a flat stare.

"Hey old man," I say weakly. He gestures at the chair across from his desk.

"Sit." I sit. "I've been told that the sixth patrol team felt a large spike in chakra and found you with an unconscious girl in the middle of a sealing circle, with a blood seal etched onto her forehead. Is this true?"

Wow. Anbu work fast. "Well yeah, but when you say it like that-"

"Do you remember what I told you about blood seals?" he commands, not asks. I frown.

"Don't mess with them," I say reluctantly. "You don't understand though-"

"I understand that the chakra team six sensed was not regular chakra. It was elemental in nature." He narrows his eyes. "Do you mean to tell me that it wasn't your chakra they sensed?"

"No, but-"

"Do you realize what the punishment is for using a blood seal without the proper qualifications? A minimum of three months-"

"Damn it old man!" I explode, slamming my fists down on the wooden armrests of my seat. "Listen to me! That wasn't just some girl, that was Sakura. And I didn't create the seal, she did."

"You still helped her perform it. Why?" He counters.

"Because she was going insane!" I say heatedly. "Your stupid medics couldn't find anything wrong with her, but whatever that bastard of a nukenin did to her on our mission has been driving her crazy since we got back to Konoha."

If that takes him back, he doesn't show it. His face just grows harder. "And you decided that using the seal she designed was the best course of action?" I open my mouth, close it, and think.

"Yes."

"Do I have to explain to you why and how monumentally stupid that decision was?" He asks quietly.

"Do I have to explain to you why I made it?" I throw back at him.

"Yes."

So I launch into my long, frustrating recount of my interactions with Sakura from her visit to me at the hospital to a few minutes ago, and everything I've learned about what was happening to her. It isn't much. By the time I'm finished the Hokage look has faded and the old man just looks tired. He leans back in his chair, procuring his pipe from underneath his desk, and takes a few puffs at it.

"You're saying you believed your teammate was going to deteriorate to young Tenten's level?" He finally asks. I nod.

"It's hard to explain. But her eyes kept getting darker, and it reminded me of Tenten. When she told me she was running out of time I kind of panicked." I scratch at the back of my neck. "I just... didn't want the same thing to happen to her, you know?"

The old man's eyes soften. "I think I do."

"And anyway, it worked," I say hastily. "She told me herself. And her eyes were all cleared up, too. I've still got no idea what was happening to her, but whatever it was, it's gone now."

"Not gone," The old man corrects me, giving me a funny look. "Sealed."

I blink. "Is there a difference?"

"Of course there is," he says firmly. "Depending on the nature of the seal she used, it may be required that she renew it after a certain period of time, or it may require a constant effort to keep functioning, or any number of things. Seals are nigh impossible to predict if you don't have any prior knowledge of them- the possibilities are virtually endless."

"Well whatever it requires, I'll make sure it gets done," I say determinedly. "I'm never letting that happen to her again."

The old man smiles. "That's good to hear, Naruto." He takes a few more puffs of his pipe, and raises an eyebrow at me. "So, setting that aside for the moment, where's your progress with that scroll I gave you?"

I pause, thrown by the sudden change in discussion. "Nowhere," I finally say, scowling. "That was a real dick move giving me a technique I need to know shape transformation to learn, old man, even if it's a family jutsu."

"Ah, but when you do learn how to do it you'll have achieved two skills for the price of one," he says sagely.

"You just wanted to watch me suffer on that stupid crystal ball of yours," I say accusingly.

"I get to teach you something worthwhile and watch you squirm," he agrees. "Two satisfactions for the price of one."

"Sometimes I hate you, old man." He smirks and puffs at his pipe some more. "Anyway, are we good? I'd like to go check up on Sakura, seeing as she's half naked and unconscious on her floor right now. Oh, and I'm supposed to check back in with Kakashi at some point too."

"Your teammate has been taken to an emergency care room to have her general well being as well as her seal inspected, and I'm afraid she won't be allowed visitors at all tonight," The old man says. Fair enough, I guess. We did just use an unknown blood seal on her, after all. "You're more than welcome to visit her tomorrow morning, however."

Oh, don't worry about that, old man. I have questions that need answering.

"But yes," he continues. "I'd say you've sufficiently explained yourself. Go on."

"Great." I get up from my seat, head for the door, and stop just short of it. I turn around. "Hey, uh, can you maybe explained what happened to Kakashi instead of me?"

The old man looks at me curiously. "Why?"

"Because if you tell him not to kick my ass for using an unauthorized blood seal, he'll probably listen." He chuckles and nods. "Thanks."

I roofhop my way back to training ground seven, a little bit bouncier and a little bit happier. For the first time since I woke up from my mini coma I'm actually looking forward to going back to work. Sakura isn't descending into madness anymore, I'm cleared for physical training, and Kakashi is going to give my Taijutsu style a makeover-

Alright, I'm not too thrilled about that one just yet, but I could be wrong.

I pass by the hospital, and my smile slips. Not everything is alright- not yet. But maybe when Sakura gets out of emergency care...

Struck by a sudden thought, I veer off my course and double back towards the apartment district where Sakura lives, alighting upon her building quickly and scaling my way back up to the balcony leading into her I step into her room I find the sealing circle has been completely erased and my sealing brush is gone.

And there's no sign of the scroll outlining the seal.

"Oh come on," I growl. I turn to leave, my plan thwarted. Then I remember.

_Wind moans through the room, rustling the scroll containing Sakura's outline of the seal and sending it rolling towards the sealing circle. I twist awkwardly and kick it out of the way._

I spin around, surveying the room. It hasn't been that long since Hawk manhandled me to the old man's office, so whoever came through here couldn't have found every little thing in the room. It might still be here somewhere.

I start rooting through the room, checking under and behind furniture, rifling through piles of books and scrolls that have obviously already been checked by the team that erased the circle. Finally I stop in front of a closet door, slightly ajar, and swing it open. The closet is empty save for a pile of clothes, and after an uncomfortable moment of consideration I start sifting through my teammate's underwear.

My hand, jammed up in the corner of the closet, meets paper. "Found you," I say triumphantly, and gently pull the unravelled scroll out from the pile, being careful not to rip it. I'm halfway through rolling it up when a strained female voice cries out somewhere below me.

"I don't care what the Hokage said, you can't just keep her holed up in intensive care without my consent! You haven't even told me what happened to her!" That must be Sakura's mother. That must be Sakura's mother talking to one of the Anbu that just went through this place. A single floor below, while I'm rifling through her daughter's panties. Hum.

I quickly roll the scroll the rest of the way up and shove it in my pants pocket, making for the balcony. I hesitate just before I jump off, glancing back at the door leading out of Sakura's room, then shake my head and leap.

* * *

I arrive at training ground seven a few minutes later where Kakashi is reading his orange book again, throwing my chakra at my back and somersaulting half a dozen times out of the trees before landing grandly on my feet. I procure my bill of health with a grin and shove it in his face.

"Aren't we excited," Kakashi says, taking the slip of paper.

I shrug. "Glad to put this restricted training crap behind me."

"Took you awhile in there," he observes, crumpling the paper up and tossing it over his shoulder.

I think about telling him about Sakura right then, remembering the concern he'd shown towards her yesterday. "I-" Ah, it's not worth the beating. He can wait. "I got lost." A half lie. Thankfully he accepts it.

"Well then, it looks like I'm clear to torture you again," he says, visible eye crinkling. "Let's start with the basics."

Tried and true instincts honed through years of dealing with Sasuke's bunshin tactics scream at me to dodge and I comply, diving forward into a roll and stabbing at the Kakashi crouched on a log with a kunai plucked from my weapons pouch. It passes through his chest, and the bunshin fades away. I stare incredulously at the empty air, then quickly spin away as my instincts scream again, just in time for the other Kakashi to slam his foot into the log, shattering it.

"Ma, I liked that log," he says sadly.

"How in the hell were you talking to me if that was a bunshin?" I demand. "They can't make any noise."

"_Body Replacement_," he says. I realize the trick just before he's enveloped in a cloud of chakra smoke, but my dodge isn't quite quick enough, and his next kick slams into my head, sending me tumbling.

"First things first," he says above me. I roll to my feet, eyeing him warily. "How did you protect yourself from that? I put enough force into that to knock a civilian out easily."

"Pressure burst of chakra," I reply, waiting for the inevitable suckerpunch. He nods in understanding.

"I thought as much. I didn't see your hands, though- where were you channeling your chakra from?"

I cock my head. "... The back of me?" I gesture vaguely at the back of my head and shoulders.

He stares at me unreadably. "Interesting." Without another word he darts forward faster than I can track, procuring a kunai and gripping it backwards. I hastily juke out of the way, just avoiding the dull end of it slamming into my temple. He spins, his free hand lashing out, and I throw an arm up to block. The blow immediately numbs my arm, and I try to jump back and put some space between us, but his leg lashes out and nails me in the stomach, sending me skidding back.

"You didn't have time to think about my attack that time," he says while I gasp for breath. "But you still managed to take the edge off of it. That pressure burst is an instinct."

"Well yeah," I cough. "If I had to think about blocking two different ways I'd never be able to keep up in a fight."

He doesn't have anything to say to that, just surges forward again. A similar exchange occurs, but this time when I block a roundhouse kick aimed at my midsection I follow it up with a blast of wind at his leg that spins him around, leaving his side open. I lunge, fist screaming with wind chakra, and punch him in the ribs. The blow knocks him back, though he makes it look graceful, and I grin.

"Gotcha."

"You preface your attacks with pressure bursts as well," Kakashi says matter-of-factly, and my spirits fall ever so slightly. He meant for me to hit him. "I figured that as well. Is that instinctual too?" I nod. He hums thoughtfully, then points up at the treetops. "Follow me."

He jumps up amidst the branches and I follow after him. We treehop for a while, running to and fro in random directions. After about a minute Kakashi starts mixing things up, doing pivots and flips and all sorts of weird crap, and I do the same. He wants to see how good I am, who am I not to show off a little bit? We're circling back to the clearing when the jounin suddenly plants his feet vertically on the trunk of a tree and pushes off, rocketing back at me with a fist drawn back.

"Dodge!"

I yelp, deliberately missing the next branch I'd been aiming for and dropping. I reach out and grab onto a lower-hanging branch on my way down and swing up and away, alighting on another branch and taking off for the clearing like a bat out of hell. When I make it back, though, I find Kakashi is already there, arms crossed over his chest.

"You can use your wind chakra to reliably augment your jumps and still remain cognisant enough of your surroundings to change things up or react to attacks," he says, tone neutral. I'm not sure if it's praise or not.

"Uh, yeah."

"I have a question for you, Naruto," he says suddenly. I blink.

"Shoot."

"Why do you only attack with pressure bursts?"

I furrow my eyebrows. "What do you mean?"

"Exactly what I asked. Why don't you mix in other methods of attacking?"

I straighten up out of my Taijutsu stance, reasonably sure he won't attack me in the middle of answering his question, and think about it. "I guess it's because I don't need to," I eventually say.

"How do you figure?" Kakashi asks, watching me intently.

"Because I just don't," I say uncomfortably. "I started doing it because I couldn't get through Taijutsu practise at the Academy without hurting my hands or my feet. It solved the problem, and I like my fighting style, so I let it be."

"And your other applications for wind chakra? Why haven't you expanded on those?" he asks. I stare at him in confusion.

"I don't understand."

"Why aren't you experimenting with your wind chaka?" he elaborates. "Why is it that you seem to be using the bare minimum of your chakra needed to get by?"

"That's not true," I protest. "Practically my entire Taijutsu style involves wind chakra."

"But it's_ basic_," he stresses. "You use it to make your attacks as strong as someone with regular chakra augmentations. You use it to dull or deflect blows that a person with regular chakra augmentations could take. You use it to perform aerial feats the a person with regular chakra augmentations could do. If you took away the wind chakra and added in regular chakra, nothing would be different. Why is that?"

"I don't know, okay?" I snap. "I use it when I need to, and it works. What's the point of this?"

"The point is that that isn't going to work for you anymore," he says. "You've been adapting your chakra when you have no other option, but as you saw when you fought that nukenin, that isn't enough. Some of your adaptations are frankly incredible, but they still won't let you fight the same way a normal shinobi would."

His words slam into me like a handful of dull kunai, battering me one by one. "What would you do?" I grit between my teeth.

"I would use the gift that I've been given!" he says exasperatedly.

"This isn't a gift," I say incredulously. "Do you know how difficult it was just to get to where I am now? It took me months just to figure out how to treehop while everyone else moved on after the couple weeks. Hell, Sasuke got it on the first day! And you're saying what I've got still isn't good enough. How is that a gift?"

"It isn't good enough because you've stopped using it," he says. "It took you months to learn how to treehop, but just think of how you do it compared to a normal shinobi. They augment their limbs and jump normally. You have to keep up a constant stream of wind to carry you over, and you have to constantly adjust it, all while remaining as aware as someone who was jumping normally. And after all that you managed to perfect your control over it to such a degree that you can perform maneuvers that I've seen some chunin struggle to perform.

"Think about what you could do with that kind of control over wind, Naruto. Think about all the things you could do with it that your teammates couldn't do with their chakra. Think, Naruto."

I stare down at my hands, and send a small burst of chakra through them up at my face, ruffling my hair. "What kinds of things?" I finally ask.

"I wouldn't know- wind isn't my element," Kakashi says. "But I can tell you a few things that I can do with fire that you can't do with regular chakra. I can burn my enemies, or suffocate them. I can cook food. I can provide light in a dark environment." He leans back against a log. "You've been thinking about this the wrong way for five years. You've been thinking of it as a curse. You've been trying to become strong in spite of it, instead of because of it."

He... He can't be right, can he? He doesn't have any idea what he's talking about. He's the pinnacle of what a shinobi should be- unreadable, untouchable, and unbelievably strong. He can't possibly understand what it's like to have to approach every single obstacle at a different angle than his peers. He doesn't understand that I've had to come up with every solution myself while he's had them handed down to him by generations of shinobi. He can't.

And yet...

I clench my fists. Since when has that ever stopped me? Since when has something never being done before ever kept me from something? Who says I have to work twice as hard just to do the same thing everyone else does, but worse? Hell, my entire term in the Academy was something that had never been done before. And not only did I do it, I did it better than my classmates. Who says I couldn't do the same for my defect? Who says it has to be a defect? I can make it more. I can make it _better_.

I can make it my greatest strength if I have to.

"I never thought of it like that," I breath, looking up at Kakashi in amazement. Maybe I'll have to make another revisement while I'm at it- maybe the jounin isn't such a jerk after all.

He tilts his head. "That's what I just said."

Prick.

"Okay, so I need to start using my chakra more," I grumble, mood thoroughly tarnished. The excitement is still bubbling in my gut, though. The promise of new paths to walk, new skills to discover. "What should I start working on first?"

Without another word Kakashi explodes forward off the log, a kunai held reverse in both hands, a maniacal grin curling beneath his mask. "Dodge!"

* * *

I trudge into the main entry room of the hospital early the next morning, rubbing at my arm and muttering darkly under my breath. It isn't often that I get hurt badly enough that it doesn't heal up with a night's sleep, but I'm still sporting a few bruises from the hellish regime Kakashi put me through yesterday. I finger the small jar of ointment I picked up on the way over here, resolving to rub myself head to toe with it after I'm done here.

"Hey, can I get the room number for Haruno Sakura?" I ask the lady at the front desk, a blonde-haired girl with a much perkier expression than the one from yesterday. She chirps the floor and room Sakura is being kept in, and I'm off.

On my way up I pass through the hallway where the critical patients are being kept, and slow to a stop in front of Tenten's door. My hand hovers over the door handle for a long, unsure breath. Then I turn it and crack the door open gently. I peek inside.

And I see Lee sitting in a chair next to her bed, grasping one of her hands in his own. He's hunched over, and I can see his shoulders shaking ever so slightly. I watch him, and the pale arm he's clinging to, transfixed. Then a muffled sob drifts through the air, and I silently shut the door.

I arrive at Sakura's room on the fifth floor where they keep the stable patients in need of monitoring, and quietly peek in there. Sakura is the only one in the room, propped up against a couple pillows and facing away from me, staring out the window at the far side of the room. I nudge the door open and slink in, but she hears me anyway, turning sharply.

"Oh, Naruto," she says in surprise. "What are you doing here so early?"

"I didn't sleep well," I say sheepishly, shutting the door and leaning back against it. "Couldn't find a good spot to sleep on after Kakashi was done with me." She smiles at that, and I can't begin to explain how good it feels to see her do it. "What about you?"

She shrugs, scratching at her arm. "I had a lot on my mind."

"Me too, actually." Now that I don't have to worry about my disturbed teammate losing her mind anymore, I'd started to turn back to the issues I'd been neglecting since I woke up. Issues like learning the _Heavenly Chains_, and figuring out what the seal on my stomach is for, and Kazu. Especially Kazu. "Have they just had you laying in bed the whole time?" She doesn't respond. "Sakura?"

"Oh, ah, no," she says. "They asked me a few questions when I first woke up, mostly about the seal and my mindset. Mostly making sure I wasn't already insane, I think."

"Yeah, about that." Beautiful segue, Uzumaki. "I kind of let it hang yesterday at your apartment, but I still want some answers." She sighs, turning back to look at the window, and the sun rising on the other side of it.

"I don't have much to say," she says nervously.

"Don't even try," I warn. "After all that crap with the seal, you owe me."

"No, I don't mean it like that," she says hastily, looking back at me earnestly. "It's just that the whole point of the seal-" She shakes her head. "Okay, I'll start at the beginning. Do you know what happened on our mission?"

"Sasuke told me," I say, nodding.

"Good. I'd rather not have to go through that in detail again." She scratches a little harder at her arm, then abruptly bunches her hands up in the sheer white fabric of her blanket. "I guess he told you it was a genjutsu?"

"Yup. I told him that you said it wasn't though, so we figured it had to be some nasty jutsu."

"I'm still not entirely sure what it was," she says. "But I know that what that nukenin showed me wasn't the product of any sort of jutsu."

I process that. "I'm sorry, what?"

"It wasn't a genjutsu or a ninjutsu because there's no such thing as a jutsu that drives the creator insane." She shudders. "What he showed me wasn't anything he created, Naruto. It was a _memory_."

The same instincts that had guided me through Kakashi's training session yesterday scream at me that what my teammate just said doesn't make any sense, that it can't make any sense. I move away from the door and fall into a seat by her bedside, staring at her intensely.

"What was the memory of?"

"I can't remember," she says immediately.

"Sakura, I swear to god-"

"I'm serious," she insists. "That was the whole point of the seal. I needed to lock it away. It was... doing things to me."

"This is ridiculous, Sakura," I say heatedly. "Why would that nukenin even want to give you his memory? He had you subdued, if he wanted to drive you insane or whatever all he had to do was use a normal jutsu."

"I don't think he wanted me to have it," she says, clenching her eyes shut. "He wanted to get rid of it."

_There was blood on her cheeks too when I checked her, but I couldn't wake her up. I think whatever he was trying to do to Sakura, he did to her first..._

"He gave Tenten the memory first," I say in realization, and all of a sudden it begins to make sense. "But he was just making copies. When giving it to Tenten didn't get rid of it for him, he tried it on you. But Sasuke stopped him before he could give you the whole thing." That's why she lasted longer than Tenten.

She doesn't say anything, just nods. I lean forward. "And that seal got rid of everything?"

She hesitates a beat. "Yes."

My expression hardens. "Don't leave me in the dark, Sakura." She looks down at her hands.

"It was supposed to all be sealed away," she says in a small voice. "But I can still remember..."

"Yeah?" I say encouragingly.

She exhales slowly, shakily. "Tails."

"... Tails." I repeat flatly. She nods meekly. "Do- Can you remember how many there were? What they looked like, maybe?" Whether or not they were the size of the Hokage Tower and connected to a force of nature?

She winces. "I'm sorry."

"You're sure you can't remember anything else?" I press. "Even the smallest-"

"_Naruto_," she cuts me off, her voice strained. She reaches up and presses against her temples. "Stop, please." I practically jump out of my seat in my alarm, hesitantly placing a hand on her shoulder.

"What's the matter? What happened?" I ask quickly. She shakes her head, pressing until her hands start to shake. After a solid minute of me hovering over her while she abuses her temples her arms drop back to the blanket and she looks up at me apologetically.

"Sorry. It's just that asking those questions- the seal was beginning to break down. It's meant to keep the memory walled off, but if I try hard enough it won't be able to stop me from remembering." She shakes her head. "Can we just not talk about it anymore?"

I stare at her incredulously. "You can't be serious. You want to drop it?"

"It won't do us any good now. I'm fine now. It's done. Please, Naruto," she implores me. She looks at me with wide, pleading, near panicked grass green eyes. I look away uncomfortably, wondering if I should open the window to get rid of the sudden heat in the room.

"If it's really hurting you," I say reluctantly. "Sure. We'll drop it."

"Thank you," she says, smiling gratefully.

"Yeah, no problem." After that not much of importance happens. We talk about what she missed with training, my woes with shape transformation, and some other easy topics. Eventually I leave for training ground seven with a promise to visit her again before she's released.

I walk out of her room and down the hall, the scroll containing the outline to her seal bouncing rhythmically in my pocket.


	12. Chapter 12

_Drip. Drip. Drip._

_My eyes slide open, shifting up towards the damp stone ceiling of the cave. I watch as another miniscule drop of water falls, adding itself to the growing puddle by my head. Another storm, then. Only when the seas are particularly rough do they bleed through into my little dwelling. I sigh, closing my eyes again. I have a long wait ahead of me still._

_Drip. Drip. Drip._

_"Hello."_

_My eyes snap open. _

_I come to my feet, snarling, but when I scan the cave I find nothing besides myself and the darkness._

_"Where are you?" I say lowly, voice hoarse from long disuse._

_"Everywhere." As if to confirm their statement, their voice echoes from all corners of the cave, pelting me from all sides. A familiar voice. If possible, I grow even warier. "I don't wish to fight."_

_My eyes narrow. "What do you want?" _

_"I want to work with you."_

_"Then face me."_

_Drip. Drip. Drip._

_"No."_

_"I don't work with those that I don't trust." I say, shifting in agitation, eyes flicking from every nook to every cranny of the underground structure. _

_Another pause. "I can't face you. This is only my voice here with you."_

_I scoff. "Do you fear me, peace bringer? Am I too large a threat to confront in your own flesh?"_

_"Your current residence is rather far out of my way," The voice retorts, something like annoyance appearing and disappearing from it in a flash. "... And yes. You are a threat to me. But you don't need to be one."_

_I sigh, sitting back down. I know where this is going now, and know exactly how it will end. The same way it has every time before it. "I refuse."_

_"I haven't even made my offer yet."_

_I roll my eyes, and consider simply leaving. I have had more than enough of this particular man to last me a lifetime, and another meeting with him will no doubt do nothing but worsen my mood. _

_Still, even that might be preferable to the solitary drip, drip, drip of the water on stone. "Fine. Speak."_

_"We could start in Suna. They have been laid low by the war, and will devour any hope given to them. From there-"_

_"What happened to Ame?" I interrupt him._

_"Ame has proven itself to be stronger than I first thought," He says, another flash of annoyance there and gone from his voice in an instant, though this time not directed at me. "It matters little, though. Suna would suit our purposes just as well. Just that instead of moving directly into the Land of Fire, we would have to deal with the Land of Earth and its hidden village first."_

_"And how do you propose we 'deal' with these nations, peace bringer?" I ask boredly. "They have begun to form groups designed for the sole purpose of combating me and the others. We will not catch them unawares."_

_"We could have if we had moved earlier." A sigh brushes against me from all sides. "Regardless, direct combat is not what I meant. I have moved past that."_

_And for the first time in a long time, I am interested. "What is your plan now?" I ask, keeping the curiosity in my voice carefully restrained._

_"We will show them that your strength is not a destructive thing, that it can be used for good. We'll show them, and they will beg for us to do the same for the others. And when we do, they will follow our cause without question."_

_I ponder on that for a long time, chewing on the vagueness of it and what it might mean. Then, I ask calmly, "What do you mean 'us'"? _

_Drip. Drip. Drip._

_"That is the key to this plan," he finally says, and I can taste the reluctance in his tone. "They will not give you the chance to prove your worth as you are. We will have to show them your power first, and then reveal you to them. We'll have to-"_

_"**No**." The word rumbles forth from my chest, echoing off the walls, shaking the very stone beneath my feet._

_"Why!?" The voice explodes, the strained courtesy of our discussion shattered at last. "You know that this is how it must be! You know this, and you know that I'm the only one who can do it!"_

_"You are wrong, thief," I reply, and relish in the drip, drip, drip that follows. "There are others, and it is with them that I have aligned."_

_"You... You do not understand," he says. "You have never understood. This evil- It is not a physical thing. The path you're on now will only be wasting your strength. There is no single enemy to fight. You need to open your eyes!"_

_"No." I shake my head. "You need to clear yours."_

_Drip. Drip. Drip._

_"There is nothing I can do to convince you?"_

_I shake my head, and again, "No."_

_"Not even-"_

_"My answer will never change, peace bringer," I say with finality._

_"Fine. I'll do it myself." The voice changes, then. It becomes darker. "This is not the only reason I have come. I've brought news as well."_

_An uneasy feeling appears in my stomach. "What news?" I ask slowly._

_"While your evil sleeps in the shadows, mine has swallowed your allies whole."_

_My breath freezes in my throat. "You lie." It isn't possible. The last time I saw them-_

_"I would gain nothing from it," The voice sounds, ice cold. "Uzushiogakure is no more. You've failed."_

_No. "You LIE!" I snarl, coming to my feet once more and lashing out at the walls of the cave, cutting goughs in it the size of men. _

_"You can see for yourself," he says. Six paths save me, no. "When you've changed your mind, find me." And just like that it disappears, leaving me alone._

_"No! No!" I howl, lunging upward towards the ceiling._

* * *

"_No!_"

My eyes fly open, locking on to the far wall of my room, my familiar bedroom wall staring back at me. I pant as the remnants of terror and blood-red fury from my dream roar through my veins. I look down at my blanket bunched up around my waist- I'd sat up at some point in the night. I run a shaky hand through my air, struggling to dispel the feeling that all my hopes and dreams had just been crushed in one fell swoop.

"Only two months this time," I hiss into the darkness of my room. "What a load of bullshit."

It's been two months since I've had a crimson dream, out in the field on my first official mission as a genin. I always get at least three between the hellishly vivid night terrors- one time, when I was ten, I even got six months.

I pause in my surly thoughts, a sudden realization hitting me square in the face, forcing my eyes even wider.

I scramble out of my bed, throwing my covers aside and scattering broken balloon slivers across my floor. I jog out into my living room and start rummaging through the dozens of scrolls littering the place. The words Fuinjutsu and Bijuu decorate nearly all of them in some way, and some even contain both.

Finally, I alight on a blank scroll and snatch it up. I survey the room in disgust. "This place used to be nice, too." Well, nicer.

I turn back and pad into my room, grabbing a t-shirt hanging off my couch on the way and maneuvering into it with the scroll tucked under my arm. I pass by my bed and grab a pencil off my nightstand, then head out onto the balcony. For a while I just stand there, relishing in the feeling of the cool breeze on my clammy skin and the sight of the trees above, glowing in the light of the moon. Then I unfurl the scroll on the flat stone railing and begin to write.

_Not-Crimson Dream #1_...

The reason Sasuke had given my disturbingly vivid (or vividly disturbing) dreams their name was because of a single recurring theme: A crimson film that obscured my senses and imbued me with a sense of rage the likes of which I have never felt in my entire life, driving me to do horrible, horrible things. It dominated every single one of the dreams, driving "me" into such a state that one time, when I was eleven, I tried to tear Sasuke's throat out when he woke me up from one. I was that consumed by it.

To this day he never wakes me up while I'm in the middle of one.

But now... I narrow my eyes at the dimly lit scroll, grasping at the fading tendrils of thought from the dream that had not been my own. Now things are different. I had passed it off as a fluke two months ago, but every ninja knows that the saying "Once is a fluke, twice is a coincidence" is complete nonsense. My crimson dreams are changing.

What exactly they're changing to, however...

I finish off my recount, read through it once, twice, three times, making sure that I've left nothing out of it. I think about trying to do the same with my other dream as well, but the particulars of that one have already faded into uselessness. Or been repressed. One of the two. All I can remember is that it lacked the crimson film just like this one, until the very end at least.

Satisfied for now with my recording, I roll the scroll up and take one last look at the trees hanging over the village before heading back into my room. The light from my alarm clock is the only thing illuminating the otherwise pitch black room, the numbers 5:49 glaring up at me. Far too early to be up, but I can never go back to sleep after having a crimson dream.

"Stupid dreams," I mutter, tossing the scroll down on my bed and shuffling into the bathroom. I go through my usual routine of showering and dressing in the dark, taking this rare opportunity of being up early to enjoy the heat of the water and actually find a clean pair of pants to wear before I have to go to my appointment for the morning. When I finally pass by my room with my sandals on my feet and keys in hand the clock reads 6:30.

Usually having to cede the rooftops to shinobi on duty is an enormous pain. But at times like this, when it's just late enough for some stalls to be open but early enough that the streets are pretty much deserted, it's actually kind of nice. I bump around from merchant to merchant, checking out breakfast foods and weapons and all kinds of other wares, exchanging a few words here and buying a few things there.

The sun is just beginning to peek up over the horizon of trees when I arrive at a small gray building made up of concrete bricks and little else. No windows. One solitary metal door. I walk up to it and raise my hand to knock, and flinch back just a little when an ANBU is suddenly there.

It's not like this hasn't happened every time I come to this place, but it never ceases to scare the hell out of me.

"Name, shinobi ID number, and purpose," the typical monotone that all ANBU are known for drifts past the ceramic mask- some sort of bird. I roll my eyes.

"Uzumaki Naruto, 12431, an appointment with Yamanaka Inoichi."

The ANBU raises a hand and taps an erratic beat on their armored shoulder, and after a moment of silence bows their head and opens the door. "Proceed."

"Yeah, good morning to you too," I grumble, moving into the building.

Drab tiles and more cement walls await me inside, illuminated by about a dozen shining bars in the ceiling. There's a small desk shoved up against the wall to my left, behind which a strained-looking woman wearing a chunin vest sits surrounded by piles of papers. She looks up at me briefly, nods towards the far side of the room and murmurs a clipped "good morning," and goes back to her work.

I walk over to the other side of the room where a set of concrete stairs leading downward await me, and descend into darkness. I emerge at the bottom into a hallway, and immediately turn to the right down a connecting hallway, thus beginning my journey through the labyrinth that is Konoha's Torture and Interrogation Headquarters.

It took me a lot of appointments here to get the path to Yamanaka's office down pat, and I'm still trying to forget some of the things I heard the first few times I got lost. I shudder, the memory of a stoic ANBU blocking my path and a woman's rising wails surging to the forefront of my mind. I come to a stop at another door, this one made of oak instead of metal. I shove it open. A large room lays inside, decorated with a couple couches, some tables, a large refrigerator, and a blackboard that covers an entire wall. The Employee Lounge.

I'm just about to turn into the door leading to Yamanaka's office when I notice a certain robed someone sitting on one of the couches out of the corner of my eye. I turn to look at him, puzzled.

"Old man? What are you doing here?"

The old man's head, which had been dipped down to his chest, jerks up. He looks at me with a startled look on his face that I don't buy even a little bit. "Ah, Naruto. You've made it." He forces himself to his feet, grasping at his hip and wincing theatrically. I shake my head, a little smile tugging at my lips. "I was hoping to accompany you in your meeting with Inoichi today."

"Why?"

"Today he will be giving me his final assessment of you," he says, smiling.

That perks me right up. "Wait, really?" He hums in confirmation and gestures towards the Intelligence Shinobi's office.

"Shall we?"

Yamanaka's office is a modest thing, done up with a medium-sized desk across from the doorway, a couple chairs, and a gray leather couch. The man himself is scribbling something down behind said desk, and waves vaguely at a chair.

"Have a seat, Uzumaki-san, we'll begin in a moment." I grab the seat on the left while the old man takes the one on the right, and the Intelligence jounin continues to scribble away. He finishes whatever it is he's writing with a flourish a few minutes later, and looks up. I try my best to contain myself at the look on his face when he sees the old man, I really do, but a choked snicker still slips out.

"Hokage-sama! I'm so sorry, I didn't realize you were here-"

"It's quite alright, Inoichi," The old man says, waving him off. There's a mischievous glint in his eyes, which only makes me laugh louder. "Any time away from my desk is time well spent, I always say. Just pretend I'm not here."

So after a little bit of hesitation and another apology for good measure, Yamanaka and I get into our routine.

It started a little over a week after I woke up from my coma, these routine visits to Konoha's cosiest shinobi division. An ANBU had appeared on my balcony at seven in the morning and scared the bejeezus out of me, and promptly escorted me to Yamanaka's office. What followed- after I got done ranting about privacy and the unholy hour, of course- was two straight hours of hundreds upon hundreds of seemingly random, utterly inane questions from the Intelligence Shinobi.

It had taken me all of five minutes to realize he was testing to see if I was a sleeper agent.

Sleeper agents had been one of Iruka-sensei's more passionate topics, so we'd gone pretty in depth in our fourth year in the Academy as to the various methods used to create and "disarm" one. One of the first things that's done to a suspected sleeper agent is a thorough sweeping of the mind by a genjutsu expert. If and when that doesn't pick anything up, the suspect is given another sweep through by a Yamanaka. Nine times out of ten, one of these two things will catch whatever that particular sleeper's trigger happens to be and measures will be taken to disarm it from there.

Unfortunately for me, Kazu's freaky doujutsu is subtle enough to slip past even Uchiha Itachi, the greatest genjutsu master Konoha has to offer, and for some reason I'm not allowed to get molested by the Yamanaka's clan technique. So I get the third and by far the most tedious method. Running me through every possible scenario that might set off my trigger until one of them does and they can disable it from there.

For the first few meetings we stuck mainly to shinobi-related words and images. Kunai, every major and minor hidden village along with their various headbands, the names of every major clan in the Elemental Nations, and on and on and on. As I'd later find out, it was done this way so that I could head back out into the field as soon as possible. All of the really stupid stuff came after I went on my second mission, an incredibly dull assault on a group of bandits lording over a supply line heading in from Kusa. Yamanaka hit me with kitchen appliances, articles of clothing, internal organs- sometimes literally after a particularly long meeting. Nothing was spared.

This meeting is no different. Though the questions and images are more complex than in earlier meetings, there's so many of them that it all starts to blend together. I'm considering trying sleep with my eyes open when he sits back and makes one final mark on a piece of paper on his desk and nods sharply.

"That's it," he says briskly, reaching over and grabbing a folder filled with papers from past meetings and sliding it in amongst them. He turns to the old man and smiles slightly.

"He's clear, Hokage-sama."

"Seriously?" I ask in disbelief. I turn to the old man hopefully. "So no more meetings?"

He clicks his tongue at that, hitting me with a chiding look. "A Hokage does not ask questions he already knows the answers to, Naruto."

My eagerness drains out of me and I nod, shot down. I don't know what I was expecting, really. The procedures in dealing with potential sleeper agents haven't changed much in the last few decades, if at all. You either get deactivated, or you get run through possible triggers in routine rotations in case you're a time-activated version. Which means if you happen to not be a sleeper agent at all, you get to go through the interrogations for the rest of your life.

I don't think I'm a sleeper agent. I'll never tell anyone _why_ I think this, least of all the old man, because I doubt "That unknown ninja who kidnapped me just doesn't strike me as a bad guy" would go over well with anyone.

Honestly, since Sakura's insanity has passed and I've been able to refocus on other things, I've become more curious about Kazu than anything. But like I said, never gonna tell anyone about that.

"Yeah, yeah..." I concede to the old man's wisdom, crossing my arms over my chest and sulking.

"Don't worry," Yamanaka says. "Since we've gotten through the first cycle from now on you'll only have to come in to see me once every six months, or anytime you want to leave the village on a mission."

That's not even a little reassuring. "I'm a shinobi," I deadpan. "Going on missions is what I do." Yamanaka shrugs and begins packing seemingly random pieces of paper into another folder.

"Not all shinobi. There's plenty of work to be done right at home," he says easily. "But if that's all, Hokage-sama, I have a couple more appointments I'd like to get in before lunch."

"Of course," The old man says, amusement glinting in his eyes, and creaks to his feet. "Come, Naruto. Why don't you accompany me to my office for your debriefing?"

"That's today?" I blurt, scrambling after him.

"You only just got back from your latest mission yesterday, Naruto. How did you forget?" The old man asks in exasperation.

I scoff. "You obviously don't know how much I have on my plate right now-" I stop short as white and red robes swish off to the right, down a hallway that I've never been through. "Uh, old man, the exit is on the left."

"I'd rather not deal with the morning crowd," he replies over his shoulder. "I've been very busy myself lately, and I'm afraid it's starting to wear on me."

I pad alongside him, eyeing the solid cement walls surrounding us on all sides. "So is this taking us to a back road, or...?"

The old man shakes his head. "Straight to my office."

"Wait, what?" I ask, turning my head to stare at him. "How does that work?"

"A staircase that winds up from the bottom to the top of the Hokage Tower, and a specially concealed entrance into my office," he explains, smiling a little at my no doubt bewildered look. I chew on this for a moment.

"So do you have paths hooked up to other places too?"

"Every pivotal building and complex in Konoha," The old man confirms, sounding pleased. We hang a left and enter into a hallway with windows lining the walls, depicting bleak images of padded cells and chains on the other sides of them. I shiver, bad memories resurfacing once more.

"Why do you have it all linked up like that? Couldn't you just shunshin?" I ask to take my mind off the old memories and the new ones laying just beyond the glass panes. The old man pulls down the brim of his Hokage's hat, shadowing his eyes, and his smile turns mysterious.

"Sometimes doing something unexpected is more valuable than doing something a bit more practical. A Hokage can not afford predictability." He doesn't elaborate past that, so I let that sit as we walk past the cells of Konoha's worst and most disturbed.

We've nearly reached the end of the hall when a familiar face catches the corner of my eye, and I jerk to a stop in front of one of the windows. I stare at the girl chained up within, manacles clapped around her wrists, ankles, and neck. She's sitting down, unconscious, held up only by the chains connecting the manacles on her wrist to the ceiling. Her head hangs low, ragged, dirt brown hair falling down around her face in a disarray.

"What the-" I turn to the old man, who looks back at me with a grave, knowing look in his eyes. "What the hell is she doing in here, old man?"

"I'm afraid that while you were gone on your latest mission her condition took a turn for the worst," The old man says quietly. "We had to move her here for the safety of herself and those around her."

"That's garbage," I snarl. "What could she have done between now and last week that was so bad? She wasn't even awake when I left!"

The old man sighs, looking away from me and through the window. "Two days ago Tenten tried to kill one of her doctors."

I open my mouth, close it, open it again. "She _what_?"

"She attacked them in a blind rage one day while they were tending to her IV, and refused to respond to any of our questions after she was restrained," he continues. "Eventually it had become too dangerous to feed her, and she was making the other patients around her nervous with all the noise she was making trying to escape her bonds. So she was moved down here."

Tenten's shoulders rise and fall slowly, her face twitches in discomfort, and I can't help but wonder if maybe the old man is lying. There's no way this girl could hurt anyone. She looks far too tired to do anything but hang there on the wall.

It's been two months since my first mission, and two months since Sakura and this girl inside the cell were ambushed by a nukenin that I never got the name of and had his Bijuu memories shoved into their heads. My teammate, thankfully, was able to save herself- from what I still don't know- with a seal that broke a lot of rules and sealed the memory away. Tenten wasn't so lucky.

I've been visiting her room in the hospital as often as I can since then, sometimes once a week, sometimes daily, depending on whether or not I have a mission. And always with a scroll on Fuinjutsu tucked under my arm and the scroll containing Sakura's outline seal in my weapons pouch. Sometimes I see Lee or Gai in there and talk with them for a while, but it's usually just me, Tenten, and my scrolls.

I had thought that her suicide-induced coma would keep her under until I managed to figure out why Sakura's damn memory seal wouldn't work, and how I could fix it. But now, according to the Hokage, I was wrong.

"Did they do anything to her before that?" I ask the glass quietly. I'm fishing now, but I still can't believe it.

"No. My specialists have yet to figure out your teammate's seal."

That day when I visited Sakura in the hospital, after I'd left her room, I'd gone straight to my apartment and drawn up as accurate a copy of her seal outline as I could. Then I handed the original over to the old man, along with all of the information I'd gotten orally from my teammate. I didn't have any illusions as to my skills with Fuinjutsu- if I wasn't going to be getting any guidance from Sakura, I wasn't going to be any better with her seal than one of the village's various specialists.

As it turned out, I hadn't arrived a moment too soon, either. The old man had been just about to interrogate her on the seal when I barged in. If I hadn't let him know just how tricky the situation was with her forced amnesia... well. Tenten might have happened.

"Can't you..." I struggle for an alternative to this situation, a plan of action, words. "Can't you make her more comfortable, at least?" Whatever that _thing_ has done to her, she doesn't deserve this.

"Once she's deemed capable of handling a more lenient environment," The old man says. The beginnings of a snarl pull at my lips, but when I turn to lay into the Hokage I find him walking down the hall. "Come now, we have work to do." He looks over his shoulder at me and smiles in reassurance. "She's in the most capable hands I have to offer, Naruto. Don't worry."

I press my hand against the glass until my fingertips bleed white, staring at what Sakura could have been, then push off and stalk after the Hokage.

* * *

"See, I told you he'd be here," Hatake's cheerful voice sounds from the doorway to the Hokage's office a couple hours later, disrupting my concentration on the balloon in my hands just long enough for a strand of wind chakra to slip free from the ball I'd compressed it into. The latex bulges, I scramble to contain the strand, and the balloon gives with a loud pop.

I curse, sinking back into the couch I'd settled into and shoving the broken balloon into my pocket. The old man chuckles merrily from behind his desk, the jerk. "I almost had it that time, too."

"Really?" Hatake asks, cocking his head. "How far did you get?"

I cough, averting my eyes. "Two minutes."

"Ma, at least you're making progress," he drawls, eye curling. Prick.

"Why didn't you meet up with us at the training grounds?" Sasuke cuts in, having moved into the room from around Hatake. He's got a familiar look in his coal black eyes- the "I'm curious and you're going to sate my curiosity or else" look.

"I had a meeting," I say simply.

"Ah." And that's enough. He and Sakura both know all about my status as a potential sleeper agent. It had been required that they be briefed on it before we went on another mission. I wasn't anywhere near happy about it at the time, feeling almost ashamed that I hadn't been able to prove my innocence, but I'd calmed down about it after my teammates had assured me that they wouldn't treat me any different because of it.

"Yeah." Kakashi slouches into the room then, revealing my timid teammate standing in the space behind him. I grin. "Hey Sakura! How was your day off?"

"Fine," she says to the floor. My grin slips.

Ever since the incident two months ago, Sakura has been... strange. Not as strange as she was with the planted memories wreaking havoc in her head, of course, but still different. She's shut herself off from me and the others even more than when we first became a genin team, becoming twice as timid and skittish. She works with us just fine during training and missions, but aside from that it's like we're strangers to her.

At first I thought it was just awkwardness over me having seen her naked- it was definitely awkward for me for a few days- but things have yet to change. And it drives me up the god damned wall.

"Since your next mentor team has yet to arrive, would you like to debrief now, Kakashi?" The old man asks mildly from behind his desk, breaking me from my frustrating thoughts and the no doubt awkward silence that had fallen upon the room.

"That would be fine, Hokage-sama," Kakashi says, nodding.

"Very well." The old man sits back, steepling his fingers, and a familiar and pressing weight bleeds into the room. It's Hokage time now- protocol is protocol, and debriefings require the utmost seriousness no matter the mission's difficulty. "Begin."

"Eight days ago, at 0900 hours, Team 7 and Team 14 left the village boundaries from the southern gate," Hatake drones. "We traveled southeast for two days until we reached our target, the lumber town Koki." It goes on like this for a while, standard protocol dictating an excruciating amount of detail for a mission that only really amounted to us taking down a minor crime lord and saving the asses of our mentor team when his hired samurai almost killed them.

Honestly, how a heavy assault team tries to get by without a single close combat specialist I'll never know.

"Hey," I murmur, nudging Sasuke. He raises an eyebrow a centimeter, keeping his gaze firmly on the Hokage and Hatake. "I had another dream."

His eyes flicker towards me. "Already?" He asks, voice just as soft.

"Yeah." I hesitate. "... It was different again."

"Like the last one?"

"That, and something else." He glances at me again, eyes sharp. "Someone else, actually. There was this guy that I was talking to. I couldn't see him, but somehow I knew he was bad news."

"What did you talk about?" He asks.

"Some sort of plan to stop something evil. It was weird."

Our conversation dies off there, our focus returning to Hatake's debrief. The silver-haired jounin meanders through the details of our initial assault on the mansion the crime lord- I never bothered to learn the scumbag's name- had commandeered when he came to the city. Minutes pass, Hatake finally get through to our trip home, and Sasuke nudges me.

"Are you sure it was a crimson dream?"

I don't even have to think about it. "Yeah." Sasuke frowns, staring pensively ahead, and our debriefing comes to a close.

The old man nods from behind his desk, stamping a sheet of paper in front of him detailing our mission for approval, and flicks a small slip of paper at Hatake. All thoughts of crimson dreams or the unused balloons in my pockets disappear from my mind, replaced with a single, gleeful realization.

Slip of paper means payday.

"Ah ah ah," Kakashi chides, holding the paper up out of my reach when I grab for it. "Wait until we get our next mission, Naruto. This won't do you any good until we get downstairs." I pull back with a huff, grudgingly acknowledging his logic, and sift through my many pants pockets. Broken balloon, broken balloon, scrap of paper, broken balloon- there we go. I pull a virginal bit of latex from my pocket with a triumphant grin, and set to work blowing it up.

Depending on the kind of mentor team we've rolled for this mission, I might have a few minutes or an hour to work on my exercise. I used to think Hatake was unreliable when it came to showing up on time, but some of these veteran genin teams are ridiculous. You'd think that after a few years they'd have gotten the hang of showing up for their missions on time, but apparently not.

Thankfully it looks like we lucked out, as a scant few minutes later there's a knock at the door.

"Enter," The old man calls, glancing up from a slip of paper likely pertaining to the very security of the village itself. Or maybe the reconstruction of that one bath house down the street from my apartment. Well, probably not the bathouse. His crystal ball's nowhere in sight.

The door swings open, and in walks the very last team I was expecting.

Team 9 enters the room cloaked in an aura of grim determination, the air of a broken soldier on his first day back in training hanging around them. The boisterous presences of Lee and Gai are gone and Neji's expression is even darker than the last time I saw him. There is no third teammate.

They step up to the Hokage's desk side by side while we watch them from the positions we've taken up around the room, and bow as one. "Team 9 requests a joint mission, Hokage-sama," Gai says.

The old man looks them over, his eyes flat. "I see you've ignored my suggestion of finding a temporary third member." Lee flinches at that, looking down. Neji just glares at a spot above the Hokage's head.

"We would never ignore you, Hokage-sama," Gai declares firmly. "We have taken your opinion into account, but we have decided that it would not be right for us to replace Tenten, and trained accordingly to fill the hole in our team." The old man raises an eyebrow at that, leaning further back in his chair and humming. Neji and Lee tense up, so much that I'm surprised they don't snap then and there.

"I'll allow it."

The two veteran genin sag, and Gai smiles gratefully. "Thank you, Hokage-sama-"

"_However_." All of a sudden subtle, uncomfortable weight in the room magnifies ten fold, pressing down on all of us. Sasuke grunts in surprise beside me, and I quickly reach out to steady Sakura, who's stumbled forward a step, forcing the hitch in my throat away as I do so. "If there is another mistake made in the protecting of your rookie team like your last mission, you will not enjoy the consequences. Am I understood?"

As one Team 9 lower their heads and murmur a "Yes, Hokage-sama." I almost do it myself, and I'm not even the one he's is mad at.

Say what you will, but the old man is damn scary when he wants to be.

"Good. You will be paired up with Team 7 again for this mission. Here." He pulls a bulky scroll from a pile off to the right side of his desk and hands it off to Gai. "The mission is straightforward. A man and a group of his followers from Taki have been causing problems in our outlying towns, inciting riots among other things. Your task will be to find and terminate them."

He leans forward now, folding his hands in front of him. His Hokage hat dips, darkening his usually warm features. "You have two weeks to complete this mission, and I expect minimal casualties." He stares intently at the three of them. "Do not disappoint me. Dismissed."


	13. Chapter 13

My apartment has never really been clean. Sure, I do laundry and clean the dishes and stuff, but only when I need to, and rarely on the same day. Because of my limited finances as an orphan and then a lowly genin grunt, my apartment lacks the various creature comforts of the upper class world, such as "trash cans," and "floor mats," and "laundry baskets." Also, the guy that lives above me has god awful pipes that are constantly causing me problems..

So my apartment has never been clean. But as I shoulder the door open and step inside, I realize it's never been quite this bad.

I'd somehow missed it last night and this morning since I got back from my mission because the place had been pitch black both times, but it's a mess. Trash litters the floors, begging for someone to pick it up. There's dirt and mud and crap all over the entryway, since I hadn't bothered taking my sandals off before shuffling into bed last night. And gods, the scrolls. They're everywhere, draped half-open across the couch, stacked up on the kitchen table, even hanging from the walls. Those are gonna cost me. So many library fees.

Looks like I've finally fallen prey to the shinobi complex that the old man warned me about when I first got this place. Getting caught up in training, doing missions, and any other manner of ninja-esque activity, instead of giving my apartment the attention it needs. My poor, abused apartment.

"Well, that's today," I say resignedly, shuffling into the kitchen and opening the fridge. Maybe I still have some rice leftover to sate the yawning chasm in my stomach until I'm done...

Not even a grain. Awesome.

Sighing miserably, I reach under the sink and pull out a trash bag. Cleaning first, then grocery shopping. Trash management to start, then laundry, then dishes, then everything else. I move through my three room apartment, filling two full bags with garbage and somehow managing to stuff all of my dirty clothes into one load of laundry. The dishes take longer, being that there are tons of them and they're all vile. Finally, though, when the sun is beginning fall in the sky the dishes have all been cleaned, the laundry dried and folded, the trash tossed into the dumpster outside my apartment complex, and the entire apartment scrubbed clean.

I also have a pile of scrolls stacked up in my living room almost as tall as I am, but I'll return those when I'm sure my wallet can handle it.

I scrub away the final spot from my bathroom mirror and sag against the counter in relief. Done. Pushing off, I rip the bright orange gloves from my hands and gather up all my cleaning supplies. I plod through my bedroom and into the kitchen again, puzzling out how much of my mission pay I'll be putting aside for rent and how much I'll be using for groceries.

I freeze in the doorway, mouth falling open, eyes set upon the miracle before me.

"I love you."

Sasuke snorts, pulling out a package of meat from the line of brown paper bags on my counter and placing it next to several others in my fridge. I scramble to put my supplies away and fall upon the bags like a wrathful god. Meat, rice, all sorts of produce, milk- and tomatoes. Lots of tomatoes.

"How much do I owe you?" I ask, grasping for a still dripping pan. Sasuke shakes his head, crumpling an empty bag in his hands.

"I had more money than I needed to restock my supplies," he says, tossing me a package of steak. I look down at it uncertainly, then back up at him.

"You sure? You don't want to save up for a sword or something?" I know if I didn't have to throw all of my funds at my landlord and living expenses I'd be saving up for a sword. Who wouldn't save up for a sword?

"Just quit hiding the damn tomatoes," he says, grabbing one up from the pile and biting into it. I nod, grinning, and start cutting up the steak while my mind wanders down the familiar path of fantasizing about buying a sweet sword.

"Steak and rice sound good?" I ask distractedly. Sasuke hums his assent and pads out of the kitchen, and I finally notice the backpack he has slung over his shoulder. My grin slips, and I'm pulled back to reality. It's one of those nights, then. I turn back to the food and dump the steak cubes into the pan, frowning.

Two years ago, when I went to the old man and begged him to let me have my own place, it hadn't been because I needed one. I mean, don't get me wrong, having my own apartment is cool and all, and I probably would have gotten one once I became a shinobi and thus a legal adult anyway, but back then I didn't care much either way where I lived. It was actually kind of nice living with the friends I'd made in the orphanage.

No, I begged the old man to let me have my own place because the caretakers stopped letting Sasuke spend the night with me when he had bad days with his family.

We never did figure out whether it was one of his dad's underhanded mechanizations that Sasuke is always accusing him of pulling, or if they just couldn't justify giving a bed and food to a child of one of the most prestigious clan heads in Konoha. One less orphan fed and all that. Whatever the reason, I decided I would take this matter into my own hands. And by that I mean nag the old man until he caved.

It took some doing, and more than a few demonstrations that I could handle all the necessaries of an apartment, but he did in fact cave. He assigned me an ANBU for a month to make sure I didn't screw up, of course, but it was a small price to pay for giving Sasuke some peace of mind whenever he got fed up with his folks. And it worked out great for a while. Every now and again he would crash on my couch, maybe once a month, and I could pretend that he just needed a break from his parents sometimes; like all kids. This past year though, especially since our introductions to Team 7, it's become harder and harder not to take his visits for what they are.

I grit my teeth, popping the fridge open and putting away all of the spoilables while the food cooks. It's not that I don't like having him over. No matter how infuriating he gets, I do enjoy having the bastard around. It just kills me every time he chooses my lumpy couch over a night with his family. I toss the last apple in the fridge and slam it shut, leaning back against it with an aggravated sigh. A flash of maroon catches my eye, and I look up at the familiar spiral patch hanging above my entryway.

I got it the day we learned about the Uzumaki in the Academy. I had approached Iruka-sensei after class and asked him where I could get one of those patches he had on his chunin vest, now that I knew what it represented. As it turns out, you can only get them when you're a shinobi, and a chunin at that, since they're produced solely for the vest and flak jackets given to chunin and jonin respectively. I must have looked pretty crushed when he told me, because next thing I knew he'd snipped off the stitches with a kunai and given it to me with a little knowing smile.

Of all the memories I have of Iruka-sensei, that's definitely one of the fondest.

I stare up at the dangling patch, my most prized possession, and admit to myself that it's not any imaginary freeloading that's bothering me about Sasuke's nights here. It's the fact that he can't stand his own family that kills me, clan full of assholes or not, because I'd do anything to spend just one night with mine.

The sizzling of the steak finally breaks through my troubled musings (brooding), and I hurry to slide the pan off the burner.

"Food's ready!" I call, snagging two bowls and filling them to the brim with meaty goodness. "Sasuke?" I furrow my brow, dumping the pan in the sink under a stream of cool water, and turn to the living room. I'm just about to go see if the jerk fell asleep on my bed or something when he walks in, holding one of the scrolls from the stack in my living room.

"What's this?" He asks strangely. I raise an eyebrow and hold my hand out. He passes me the scroll, and I scan the text inside. It takes me about two words to realize what I'm looking at, and an uncomfortable weight settles in my stomach.

"My dream." Sasuke stares hard at me for a long moment before taking a seat and tucking into his food. I roll the scroll up and set it down on the table, turning to my own food while my mind wanders back to the memory of the cave and the voice and the _fury_.

"Who are you?"

I look up from my food, startled, and find Sasuke staring intently at me. Er. "Naruto."

He rolls his eyes. "No, idiot. Who are you in the dream?" _Oh._ He's talking about the labels I'd given the voice and...

"I don't know," I admit. It's something that's always bothered me about the dreams, almost more than the chaos and blood and rage. It's me doing all of the raging, but at the same time it isn't. It's someone separate from me, but I can never put my finger on the distinction when I'm awake. "All I know is they aren't me. I'm just... looking through their eyes, I guess." That's wrong, but I can't think of how else to explain it.

We finish eating in silence, and while I'm washing the dishes- I'm pretty good about keeping things in shape the first day or two after a cleaning spree- Sasuke asks another question I don't have an answer to.

"Could they mean something?"

My hand freezes in its scrubbing, and I contemplate the spiral patch hanging above my entryway.

_Uzushiogakure is no more. You've failed._

"Like what?"

Sasuke grunts, and the sound of rustling paper mingles with my scrubbing. "I don't know. Maybe they're visions, like the priestesses get."

I crane my head and glare at him. "What are you trying to say?"

Instead of dignifying that one with a response, he traces a finger over the scroll, narrowing his eyes. "Or maybe..."

I set the bowls back with the other dishes and turn back to the table, wiping my hands off on my pants. I move behind Sasuke, who's staring pensively down at the log, and read over his shoulder. He's still at the persuasion point, where the dream almost seemed civil. Suddenly he points at a line.

_We could start in Suna. They have been laid low by the war, and will devour any hope given to them._

"Referencing either the second or third Great Wars," he says, keeping his finger there and dragging the index of his other hand down the paper.

_Ame has proven itself to be stronger than I first thought._

"And that's probably referencing Hanzo the Salamander. Though whether it's his rise in the second or just his rule in the third..."

"It's the second," I say firmly. At Sasuke's curious look, I point at the bit that's been haunting me the most about this particular dream.

_You've failed..._

"The day Uzushiogakure fell," he murmurs. I frown.

"So you think these are, what? Reverse-visions? Memories?"

"Probably memories, if you're seeing it through someone else's eyes." Sasuke shrugs. "It could explain the vividness. But why you'd be remembering someone's memories, on the other hand..."

I freeze up. Oh. Oh god.

"Uh, yeah, that seems pretty out there." My voice sounds distant in my ears as realization hits me. Could this be what the old man has been afraid to tell me all these years? All along, a set of memories sealed in my stomach? Why, though? Is there some hidden significance to them? Some sort of hidden code or technique in one of them that I haven't gotten to yet?

And what kind of monster did I get them from?

Sasuke grunts and pushes off from the table, sending me stumbling back."Either way, there's not enough here to be sure about anything yet." We'll need to wait for more. I clear my throat, doing my best to put my sudden dread aside for the time being. I briefly consider confronting the old man about it, but I've already told him about my dreams a few times and he didn't make any mention of the seal, so I don't see why he would now. Even if I bring it up myself. Especially if I bring it up myself.

Damn old man.

"Alright, never mind that," I say, reaching around him to scoop up the scroll. I head for my room. "Come here, I want your take on something."

* * *

In all the missions I've been on as a shinobi- all five of them- there's a general procedure that seems to be universally followed. The veteran and rookie teams meet up at the gate they'll be leaving Konoha through, an exchange of mission info takes place, and then the mission starts. What follows is a trip that can be gruelling in one of two ways, depending on how sensitive time is. Either through a long, hard, uninterrupted run to the objective, or a more leisurely journey where the rookie team is run ragged by the veterans as 'training'.

It's shinobi hazing, and anyone who says different is either a civilian or a raging dick.

So when Gai reads off the mission scroll to everyone at the eastern gate, I'm thinking it's going to be an easy trip with a few bruises thrown in. We'll be spending up to three weeks searching for leads on this guy and his followers, and taking them out if we can find them. Apparently the Hokage (or whoever drew this mission up) would "prefer" if the leader is taken alive and the followers persuaded to disband peacefully, but nobody's going to be shedding tears if something happens.

In other words, no rush. We register with the chunin on guard, and I'm feeling pretty relaxed. The sun is out in full force today, and there isn't a cloud in the sky. Gai barks out a formation, and I fall in line. I figure he's just keeping things tight so the old man can't call him out on anything when we get back. I'd be jittery too if I'd been on the receiving end of that Hokage glare.

Then his arm shoots up, and Lee and Neji tense up. I gulp.

"NEJI!" Gai roars.

Neji nods sharply. "Yes, Gai-sensei!" He disappears in a blur, up and out of sight into the trees.

"LEE!"

"Yosh, Gai-sensei!" Lee shouts, and I'd be glad for the sudden display of life, except the next moment he shoots forward even faster than Neji did, down the path instead of up into the trees. It's about here that I realize we're going to have to keep pace with that. For the whole trip.

I turn to where Hatake was in desperation, but he's already gone. I spin back around, surveying the now empty clearing. Behind me, the chunin on guard snickers.

God damn it.

* * *

"Break!" Gai's voice drifts through a haze of trees and exhaustion just before nightfall, an eerie reminder of our first mission and our first hellish run with Team 9.

I don't register it, of course. I'm too busy trying to make my fall from the trees look vaguely intentional and not hurt Sakura in the process. I had tried running on the path exactly once, when the exhaustion first began to hit me, to avoid the extra effort of adjusting my chakra output for every hop through the trees. I lasted all of ten seconds before I lost sight of everyone but Sasuke.

I somehow manage to resist the urge to roll and instead land in a heavy crouch on a strong updraft of my chakra. I shift Sakura off my back and gently set her down beside me. I wobble then, falling back, and find myself caught in her arms this time.

"Thanks," I say, grinning weakly. She smiles back, the exhaustion just as clear on her face as mine. Then my knees buckle and I fall, dragging her down with me. I gasp as she lands roughly on my stomach.

I was wrong on that first mission all those weeks ago. So very, very wrong. Regular old sprints are nothing. Running at this hellish pace from sunrise to sunset- I bet this isn't even their full speed- _this_ is hell.

"I hate Gai," I wheeze. A loud thump beside me signals the arrival of Sasuke, panting twice as hard as I am and clawing at his backpack. Sakura rolls off me, an apology on her lips, but I just wave her off.

I watch Sasuke fumble with the straps of his backpack for a bit, until I realize he's trying to get to one of the sealing scrolls with all his water in it. A little surge of vengeful satisfaction gives me the strength to snap my own canteen off the clip at my waist and hold it out to him. He takes it after a moment's hesitation and chugs the whole thing down in between gasps for air and little sounds of relief.

"So," I ask the sky. "Where are we now?"

"Just outside the town where we'll be starting our investigation," Hatake replies as breezily as ever, suddenly standing upside down on a tree branch above me.

I grunt. "But we're sleeping out here, I take it?"

"Actually, Gai was kind enough to offer to get us all hotel rooms for our stay here." He shrugs, his eye crinkling. "If you'd rather the comfort of the stars, though-"

"Sasuke!" I bark. "Help me up. I can't feel my legs."

Hatake leads us through the trees to Team 9, who are in the process of a debriefing if the rigid postures of Lee and Neji are anything to go by. To my dismay, Neji is only breathing a little heavily and Lee barely looks flushed. They seem to wrap up as we make our way into the clearing, and Gai gives them a sharp nod and a smile, clapping a hand on each of their shoulders. Lee beams, and this time I allow myself to feel happy for him.

"Are your students well, Kakashi?" The spandex-wearing jonin asks in concern, eyeing the three of us. Kakashi waves a hand.

"Sakura's still getting used to the physical demands of an assault team, but it's fine," he says, throwing a deceptively warm smile my way. "She has Naruto to take care of her."

"I'll take care of you," I grumble under my breath. As soon as I have enough energy to throw a punch. And think of some better threats, maybe.

"That was most youthful of you, Naruto," Gai commends me, grinning widely. Lee nods wildly in agreement. I reach up to scratch the back of my neck.

"It wasn't a big deal," I say bashfully, shooting a discrete glance at Sakura to make sure she isn't beating herself up over it again. "I only helped her out for a few minutes." And it's a good thing I did, too. I don't think I could have handled much more than the length of time I carried her.

We do a general inventory check before heading into the town. The town, a sleepy little place that's too far away from Konoha and Tanazuka Gai and not close enough to the border to have a big market appeal, looks to be settling down for the day. Most of the stalls look to be already closed up or in the process of doing so, and I can only spot a few lights still shining from bars and restaurants. Gai takes the lead and we make a beeline for the hotel, a joint called the The Sleepy Tea Leaf of all things.

We check in with little fanfare, and the kindly old woman behind the front desk shows us to our rooms. Three in all, one for Gai and Hatake, one for Neji and Lee, and one for me, Sasuke, and Sakura.

I immediately head for the bathroom to drain my aching bladder. I shuffle out a few minutes later, stretching and groaning in two parts relief and pain. Sakura is already fast asleep on her mat, face down and snoring softly. I snicker, turning to my own mat.

My mat, which Sasuke is sitting on. The only other mat in the room.

"Really, Uchiha?" I ask incredulously while he rummages through his backpack. "You're not even gonna give me the mat? I nearly killed myself carrying Sakura!"

Sasuke shifts a few scrolls around in his pack, then shakes his head. "Sorry, I forgot to pack a damn to give."

"You," I growl, hand spasming towards my weapons pouch.

"Hey you two!" Hatake says, poking his head from the little conjoining door connecting our rooms together. Gai's voice floats in from behind him, as boisterous as ever, no doubt shouting some youthful orders to Neji and Lee. "I just wanted to let you know that you and Sakura are going to be training with Team 9 while Gai and I start asking around for leads."

You can't do that, Hatake! There are rules! Shoving a demon run and a hazing into one mission is more than wildly irresponsible- it's _madness_.

That's what I mean to say. Instead I fall backwards onto the floor with an incomprehensible moan, only my bulky backpack saving me from colliding with the cold and unforgiving hardwood floor.

"They start at dawn, so set your alarms!" And with that he shuts the door with a sharp click.

With nothing left to do except maybe cry, I roll out the sleeping bag that I somehow remembered to pack this time and shed my shirt and sandals before wiggling in. Sasuke gets up to turn off the light. I sigh, staring up at the ceiling contemplatively.

"Hey Sasuke."

"Hn."

"I hope that mat has bugs in it."

"Idiot."

* * *

Dawn does not waste any time in coming, and it feels like I've only just closed my eyes when I find myself being shaken awake by Lee hard enough to make me see stars. I sit up, or get sat up, and blink dizzily at his bright green leotard.

"Naruto-san! Are you up, Naruto-san?" He asks me.

I roll my no doubt bloodshot eyes. "No Lee, I'm fast asleep." I swat him away, struggling to get out of my sleeping bag.

I manage to free myself and squint through the darkness, finding Sakura and Sasuke awake as well and looking about as happy about it as I am. Sasuke is channeling his Uchiha blood into the most poisonous glare I've ever seen levelled at Lee's back, and Sakura just looks straight exhausted. I grope around in my backpack for some clothes that aren't completely soaked with sweat and stumble towards the bathroom.

"Dibs on first shower," I call over my shoulder, earning myself a surly grunt from Sasuke.

The hot water feels like heaven on my stiff muscles, but I keep it short. I don't think Lee would barge into my shower to hurry me up, but I'm not confident enough to test him. I walk out a few minutes later, more hungry than tired. I can't stand waking up early, but once I get going I don't really need more than a few hours to get me through the day.

I haven't even made it all the way through the door when Sasuke shoves past me inside. I consider taunting him about missing his beauty sleep or something equally hilarious, but from the look on his face he'd probably just punch me for it. So I shrug and go over to my pack to snag my training supplies. Kunai, shuriken, senbon- I eye the carton of throwing needles dubiously before pocketing them- and a couple bags of balloons.

I'm filling up my first balloon of the day when there's a soft poke on my shoulder.

"Naruto?"

I crane my head to look up at my pink-haired teammate. "Hey Sakura, feeling better?" I ask.

"Yes, I am," She says, smiling slightly. "But... I wanted to apologize."

I cock an eyebrow. "For what?"

"For making you carry me."

I snort. "You don't need to apologize, Sakura. You know how many times I've helped Sasuke out of crap?" She shakes her head. "More than I can count. You know how many times the prick has apologized for it?" She smiles again. Booya. "Exactly. We're teammates- just say thanks."

"Thank you Naruto," she says quietly. I smile warmly.

"Any time."

As it turns out, there aren't any training grounds in this civilian town, so instead we wander around in the woods for a while until we find a clearing that Neji declares "sufficient". Then we split off. Before I can even propose a spar Lee has grabbed Sakura and Sasuke and dragged them off towards one end of the clearing while Neji strolls over to the other. I shoot Sasuke and Sakura a smirk and a sympathetic look respectively, then follow after my personal trainer for the day.

"I have been informed that your sensei is training you in the Dancing Fist," he says stoically when we've reached the edge. I blink.

"The what now?"

He rolls his eyes. I think. "The art of dodging."

Oh. "Yeah, if that's what he wants to call it."

"Is this because of your lack of skill with chakra augmentation?" he 'asks', in that Hyuuga sort of way that really means he's stating a fact. I nod curtly. "I thought so."

He settles into the typical Hyuuga stance, and the veins around his eyes bulge as he activates his Byakugan. My tenketsu already hurt. "The Gentle Fist is a style which requires extreme agility as well as precision, not unlike the Dancing Fist, so I'm going to teach you how to dodge."

"Can we call it something different?" I ask. He raises an eyebrow. "Like, Dancing Fist is almost as bad as Breeze Fist. Why can't we call it something cool, like the Wiley Fist, or the Ghost Fist? Or, _or_-"

Neji surges forward and pokes me in the shoulder.

I won't go into detail on the complete and utter asskicking that follows, because it hurts just to think about it. But suffice to say it was swift, and it was brutal, and it smelled like coconut shampoo. When I finally collapse on my back with a strangled groan and Neji straightens up out of his Gentle Fist stance, my arms and neck and face are all riddled with sores from the tenketsu blows, and I don't even want to think about the skin underneath my clothing.

I take comfort in the fact that it was to be expected, at least. Hyuuga get trained in the Gentle Fist practically from birth, and I only started with this Dancing Fist crap two months ago. Still, it doesn't stop the indignation from burning steadily away, urging me to get back up and try again. Too bad Neji disabled the tenketsu that let me bend my knees.

"That was pathetic," Neji says above me. So much for being polite. "You weren't even using the Dancing Fist for half of the fight. You were _brawling_."

"Because you wouldn't let me use my chakra!" I snap.

"I wouldn't let you use your pressure defenses and attacks because they were disrupting my Gentle Fist strikes," Neji says, voice icy. "The difference of an inch in this style is one of life and death."

Of course I know that. Say what you want about it, but the Gentle Fist is dangerous. I don't even have a shadow of a doubt that if one of the numerous pokes he'd delivered to my neck and chest and face had been knocked just a little bit off I could be dead on the ground right now.

I'm just being petulant.

"That should not have been an issue, regardless," My wonderful tutor continues. "I did not restrict your agility at all, and while your ability to divert attacks with your chakra could be useful with the correct training, it should not be your primary method. The Dancing Fist by itself is capable of handling most close combat situations."

"What's the harm in using my chakra if it works?" I ask.

"There are two reasons." He holds up a finger. "The first is that, as I said, you don't have enough control over it. If you dodge an attack it will not hit you, and that is it. If you try to knock it aside, any number of things could happen depending on the nature of it. You could end up blowing it at one of your allies, or detonating it on the spot, or any number of things."

He holds up another. "Second, if you fall into the habit of using it you will be less proficient with the Dancing Fist when you have to use it by itself. Since your means of augmentation is external and wind-based, you'll need to dodge a katon jutsu with a greater breadth that you would other attacks. This sort of split second reaction requires a familiarity with the Dancing Fist that can not be obtained with a crutch."

I stare.

"... Oh."

He snorts and walks out of my sight, and I painstakingly force myself up into a sitting position. I take a look over on the other side of the clearing, and feel a little vindicated when I spot Sasuke struggling to keep pace with Lee and his ungodly speed. He looks like he's doing magnitudes better than when Lee smacked him down in the old man's office when they first fought, at least.

A flash of pink catches my eye, up in the trees, and a moment later Sasuke allows one of Lee's punches to nail him square in the face. I wince, watching him turn the force of the blow into a backflip. Even though he did it on purpose, I could still hear it from all the way over here. Lee darts after him, only to slam into a shining red barrier. He stumbles back, dazed, and the sizzling hiss of live explosive tags drifts across the clearing.

I watch him hit the barrier, a dome of shining red chakra, hard enough to break every bone in my body. I hear more than see it crack, but it holds. He hits it again, and it holds. All of a sudden he bends down, fiddling with something at his feet. I watch him in disbelief, wondering what he could possibly doing.

The explosive tags go off.

I flinch, immediately looking back at Neji to see his reaction. He continues to move through his kata, unperturbed. What the...

I turn back and see the bright red barrier fall away, shattered beyond repair. Dust floats over the clearing, obscuring my view of everything on Sasuke and Sakura's side. Grunting in annoyance, I hold a hand out, miraculously left unpoked by Neji's barrage, and push. It isn't much, but the cloud begins to clear a little faster with a breeze to help it along. The dust finally settles, and my eyes go wide. No way.

Lee is standing a few yards outside of the crater where Sakura's tags went off, hunched over and holding what look like weights in his hands. His leotard is in tatters, which are thankfully still covering his youth, and his bowl cut has been singed beyond repair. Even still, it looks like he managed to escape the barrier jutsu without destroying it completely, allowing it to absorb most of the blast for him. I watch him strap the weights back on, pat out his hair, then straighten up with a flourish and blur towards Sasuke again.

"Wow."

"Do you begin to see the gap in your strength and ours?" Neji asks, transitioning fluidly into another round of his kata. I scoff.

"Whatever, Hyuuga. Give us a year and we'll be twice as good as you."

"More talk," he says dismissively. Fucking Hyuuga.

Rather than get into another argument with the infuriating genin, though, I decide to do something constructive while my poor tenketsu recover. I rifle through my pants pocket, procuring a bright orange water balloon, and stick a finger in it. Might as well work on my shape transformation while I'm here. Hell, maybe my reduced chakra flow will even make it easier.

I tie it off a moment later and form my little chakra ball inside of it, then start compressing it. It takes approximately no time at all to realize that, if anything, Neji and his stupid Gentle Fist made compressing my chakra harder. It feels sluggish running down my arm, and the happy, weightless feeling that I usually get when I channel my chakra now feels like the pins and needles that you get when you try to walk after your foot falls asleep. Soon enough little bulges peppar the surface of the balloon's surface, and I let the ball of chakra dissipate.

I form another ball, Neji transitions into a new string of his kata, and chaos continues to rein on the other side of the clearing.

I make it to three minutes and not much higher, even as my tenketsu begin to relax and my chakra flows freely. The longest I've ever gone was four minutes, and that particular session ended with a migraine that not even Ichiraku's could heal. No matter what I try the wind always finds some hole in my grip on it, some crack to bleed through. And even if I were to somehow keep it contained for five minutes, I'd be devoting literally all of my concentration to it. Not exactly useful for a combat situation.

I toss my tenth popped balloon aside, sighing in disgust. I glance over to Sasuke and Sakura's side of the clearing, and find them both collapsed on the ground while Lee rants about something or the other above them. Looks like we're done for the day, then. I turn, shifting a tingling leg underneath me to stand up, when something hits me.

"Hey Neji," I say. He doesn't pause in his kata, or acknowledge me at all, but I continue anyway. "You're a Hyuuga, yeah? You know the Heavenly Rotation thing, right?" That gets his attention. He pauses in his kata, looking at me as curiously as his pure white eyes will allow.

"It's the Revolving Heaven," he corrects me. He cocks his head. "Who told you about it?" There's not nearly as much righteous Hyuuga fury in his voice than I'd have expected.

"I'm helping, uh, a friend," I say, catching myself just in time from mentioning Hinata's name. Neji doesn't seem to care about me knowing, but who knows what he's actually feeling behind those eyes. "They're a Hyuuga too, and they're trying to learn it, but they're having trouble."

"And?"

"Well, could you show me how you do it?" I narrow my eyes. "You do know how to do it, right?"

Rather than respond with something scathing like I'm expecting, instead he goes completely still. He closes his eyes, takes a deep breath, and then pivots on his foot.

It's so much different than what Hinata has shown me that I don't even recognize it at first.

When Hinata performs the Revolving Heaven, it sort of starts off like a cocoon of chakra wrapping around her body. Then as she spins faster and faster it expands, forming a rough dome shape. It keeps on expanding the faster she spins, and inevitably begins to lose its shape and implodes.

Neji doesn't even spin a couple times to get his momentum going before he starts the jutsu. As soon as he pivots chakra explodes out of his body, skipping the cocoon phase entirely and instead forming a perfect dome of chakra around him. It hums like Hinata's, but it's twice as loud, and sounds twice as dangerous. And as I watch it continue to go round and round, I realize that it isn't expanding like Hinata's either. It's not changing shape at all.

After about half a minute of spinning the jutsu finally breaks down, but from the casual way Neji is standing when it dissipates I get the feeling it's because he decided to cancel it rather than lost control. I look down at his feet, and notice that the ground is entirely unmarred, where Hinata's attempts always leave it scarred around her feet.

"... That was awesome."

He hums, and goes back to his kata.

"So, uh. How did you do that?"

He sighs, spinning around ducking low. "What are the results of your 'friend''s attempts?"

"Well, theirs doesn't usually start out as a perfect dome like yours. It sort of wraps around their body and expands as they spin. Then instead of stabilizing like yours, it keeps going until it collapses in on itself. And..." I scratch my nose, thinking of any other info that might be of use. "Oh! When they do it it's not as controlled as yours. It rustles branches and kicks up dirt and stuff."

He sneers, pivoting on his foot. "What they are doing is not the Revolving Heaven. It is little more than a cheap imitation, nothing more."

I glare at his dancing form. "Yeah, whatever. So how do they fix it?" He finishes his kata in a crouch, and stands up. He stares off into space for a minute- or maybe he's looking me in the eyes, you can never tell- before shrugging, apparently having come to a decision.

"They are not channeling their chakra as they should, first of all," he says. "There is more to the Revolving Heaven than ejecting chakra through all of your tenketsu. You must do so in a shape that allows for a stable half sphere to form."

"I thought you couldn't control your chakra once it left your body?" I point out in confusion. My understanding of regular chakra theory is admittedly pretty terrible, seeing as my chakra has different rules, but I can remember Iruka making that one point crystal clear. Once your chakra leaves your tenketsu, it's gone. No takebacks.

"You can not control your chakra once it has left your body, but you can eject it however you want," he says. "If you don't do it this way then the sphere can't take shape, and the Revolving Heaven becomes unstable. Your 'friend' has been imitating the appearance of one with their physical spinning, not any control over their chakra."

actually makes sense. "What about the collateral damage?" I ask, waving a hand at the ground. He shrugs again.

"That is a matter of speed and motion."

"... Yeah?" I prod when he doesn't say anything past that. He sighs.

"Think of the Revolving Heaven as a ball of wind chakra," he says, the condescension in his voice thick. "Just like the wind, you can not simply contain it so nothing leaks out. The wind is ever moving. You must instead give it a direction to move. The faster it moves in this direction, the tighter and more controlled it becomes. But you must have control over the current, because if you don't bits of it will leak out." He spins his finger in a little circle for emphasis. "Was that simple enough for you?"

I stare at him, open-mouthed.

"What?"

I nearly tear a hole in my pants looking for a fresh balloon, and pop my first two trying to fill them up in my excitement. Finally I get one a little bigger than my fest clenched in my hands, and after a few calming breaths, slowly, _slowly_, channel chakra into it. The surface ripples, and I begin to spin the chakra around in a circle. The surface continues to ripple, but I pay it no mind, focusing on spinning the chakra faster and faster, mentally whirling a finger around like Neji had done.

And then, all of a sudden, the balloon's surface goes still. I hardly dare breathe, spinning it faster and faster until I can hear it humming from inside the balloon. I let it run at that speed, listening to it hum as the minutes tick away in my head. One, two, three, four. Come on, come _on_.

Two ninety-six, two ninety-seven, two ninety-eight, two ninety-nine...

I stare down at the balloon in shock. Not a ripple. I did it. I actually did it.

The wind is ever moving.

"Neji, you're a _genius_."


	14. Chapter 14

Two ninety-seven, two ninety-eight, two ninety-nine... three hundred.

I breathe a sigh of relief, releasing the swirling mass of chakra all at once and causing the surface of the balloon to bulge dangerously before settling. That had been a lot harder than the first time, and the second, third, and fourth time I did it after my initial success just to be sure I had it down. It was probably because I was walking this time, and had to account for the little imbalances caused by my footsteps before they actually happened.

After I'd made sure that I had mastered the Shape Transformation exercise Hatake had been taunting me with for two months (and I'd regained control of my limbs), I wasted no time in rounding up Sasuke and Sakura and informing Lee mid-rant that we were heading back to the hotel. I felt a little bad for the guy considering how enthusiastic he had been in instructing my teammates, but that was easily overwhelmed by my desire to get the next piece of the puzzle that is the Great Breakthrough from Hatake. Also, the sooner the guy got himself a new set of clothes the better.

Gai and Hatake were waiting for us at the hotel, but before I could show off my new skills Gai was hustling us into our rooms and telling us to gather up our things. Apparently they had already found a lead- our targets weren't exactly trying to keep a low profile- and our next destination was to be a large trading village straddling the border between Fire Country and Kusa.

I nearly threw a fit then and there. I had just run nonstop for a full day, not even taking into account the beating I got from Neji, and there was no way in hell I was going to do it again anytime soon. Fortunately for me, Gai seemed to realize how unfair that would be to us. And by us, I mean Team 7. For all I knew this was standard procedure for Neji and Lee.

Regardless, instead of the breakneck pace from yesterday, he'd decided we could afford to make the trip in reasonable bursts. So while we walked on the path to the border, I got my chance to show Hatake my breakthrough.

I look up at him, grinning. "So how was that? See any ripples?"

"Not a one," Hatake says, his eye crinkling. He reaches down and ruffles my hair. "Good job!"

I roll my eyes, smacking his hand away. "So what's next? I can do the jutsu now, right? I know the trick," I say, spinning my finger in a little circle.

"Not quite. That exercise was just the first part of what you'll need for the Great Breakthrough," Hatake says, shaking his head. I groan. "Ma, don't be like that. That was the hardest part."

"You mean the part you could have just told me how to do?"

He smiles. "Exactly!"

"So what's the next step?" I ask, resigned to my fate.

"The next step is doing what you did with that balloon, but inside of your throat."

Realization hits me all of a sudden. "So that's why my I kept coughing whenever I tried to use it."

Hatake hums in approval. "Without the proper control your chakra brushes against your throat and disrupts the jutsu. Depending on how far you are into your build up, this might result in a cough or a throat slit from the inside."

"... Oh."

He chuckles. "Don't worry, you're not going to be using the real thing until you can control a loop of chakra at a dead sprint in your sleep. For now I would alternate between slowly working on producing a stable loop of chakra inside your throat, and speeding up the loops you can do in balloons."

"What? Why?" I ask, cocking my head. "How fast does it need to go?"

"If you want to use it for anything but a handy way to deflect shuriken, it'll need to go twice as fast as it was just now," he says. "You're compressing your chakra into an extremely small area, so if you want it to have any sort of impact when you release it you're going to have to spin it just as extremely fast."

I sigh. "Great. Anything else?"

"Just one thing. A hand seal." Hatake promptly claps his hands together, interlocking his fingers in a snake seal. "Once you're ready to perform the jutsu, use this hand seal. It'll take care of the rest."

He ruffles my hair again. "Now get to work, my cute little student. We've got a long walk ahead of us." And with that he walks past me, settling next to Sakura.

"I'll show you a cute little student," I mutter.

The journey passes by uneventfully. It takes the first day of walking and then another week of walking and running in shifts to get there, which is spent training. I get fed up with trying to channel chakra into my throat pretty quick after the first dozen coughing fits, and focus my sole attention on getting my loop in the balloon as fast and controlled as possible. I make a fair bit of progress, but all it does is make me dread replicating the exercise inside my throat even more.

I'm not the only one struggling, at least. Sasuke walks the whole way with a perpetual scowl on his face and a leaf clenched between his pinched fingers, and Sakura keeps her head buried in a scroll that she got from Hatake, oblivious to the world around her.

Team 9 fall into what seems like a practiced routine. Lee and Gai bounce from one ridiculous challenge to another, doing their best to rope Neji and Hatake in periodically, though the two of them refuse to have any of it. I don't even think Neji is doing any training at all until I notice on the third day that his eyes are periodically switching from normal to Byakugan and back.

Some fancy Hyuuga training. I don't bother trying to figure it out.

We arrive at the village late into the night. The place, called Nago, is enormous. It boasts a vast array of establishments just at the entrance of the place, stalls ranging in purpose from food to games to performances. It's easily the second largest village I've ever seen, after Konoha. It's not half Konoha's size, of course, but there isn't much that can stack up to one of the Great Hidden Villages.

While Gai and Hatake discuss our more immediate plans of action, I take a moment to admire the sheer livelihood of the place. There are dozens upon hundreds of people about, bouncing between stalls and stores. The clothing styles of Kusa and Fire Country are both proudly represented in the fray.

There's a definite sense of excitement in the air. A familiar one. I smack Hatake's arm with the back of my hand, grabbing his attention.

"Is there a festival going on here or something?" I ask.

"Yes, actually," Hatake says. "This one is celebrating the end of the Third Great War, if I recall correctly."

"Your infuriatingly hip sensei is correct!" Gai bawls. "It is a festival that our two nations share every year, just as we shared the burden of a war over a decade ago."

"So we've gotta try and find this cultist guy in the middle of a huge festival?" I ask, tone dubious. "Won't that be, uh, hard? We don't even know what they're supposed to look like." Which could make things _really _difficult depending on just how into it this place gets with the costumes.

"As luck would have it, Gai and I managed to get a description out of our little investigation before we left," Hatake says. "They're dressed, if you can believe it, like cultists. Blue robes and not much else of note. Their leader is supposed to be the same."

"That's it?" Sasuke prods. Hatake shrugs.

"We were told he'd have some headwear as well. Maybe a book. Religious things."

"Sounds like a blast." At least we'd nailed down their location pretty quick. Hell, we might even be able to track them down with enough time to enjoy the festival.

"Indeed, my youthful genin!" Gai agrees, slapping me on the back. Hard.

"We thought we'd split you up into pairs for tomorrow, so you can cover ground faster." Hatake explains, pointing to me and Sakura. "You and Sakura are going to scope out the outskirts of the festival- small restaurants and such. You two," he says, gesturing at Sasuke and Lee, "are going to make sure there's nothing unseemly going on in the residential districts while most of the village is gathered in the business sector for the festival."

"Aw, what about Neji? Doesn't he get a partner?" I ask, jutting my bottom lip out. Neji sneers.

"Due to Neji's bloodline, he's better suited to searching for our target by himself. However, that does not mean his springtime flames will not burn just as bright as yours!" Gai... assures me?

_Springtime flames_, I mouth silently as Hatake wraps up the briefing.

"Yeah, Neji is going to investigate the festival itself with Gai and me, since it'll be the most difficult to navigate." He hands me, Sasuke, and Neji each a slip of paper with a seal I've never seen before scrawled on its surface. "I'll activate these when it's time to turn in for the night, so when they go off double back to here. Got it?"

"Yes, sensei," Sakura answers dutifully. The first thing she's said in days, it seems like.

Hatake smiles. "_Thank you_, Sakura," he says, sending a meaningful glance my way, and I dutifully resist the urge to blow him a raspberry.

While Lee drags Sasuke off deeper into the village in search of the residentials and two jonin and Neji melt into the festival, I stay rooted to my spot. Sakura doesn't move either, glancing at me for cues. I scratch at the back of my neck. The festival is right there, so...

"See 'em?" I ask, glancing around. She giggles. "Well, it is technically our area. Let's just follow the fun, I guess." And maintain a healthy, professional distance from the fun, of course. Wouldn't want anyone getting the wrong idea.

We skirt around the festival as best we can, mingling in some of the rest stops sprinkled around its edges. Little outdoor restaurants, game stalls, that sort of thing. We see all sorts of people, ranging from beautiful to mysterious to straight outlandish, but none of them are quite the right combination we're looking for. I've just finished buying a handful of teriyaki strips on sticks to sate my wailing hunger, and am in the midst of offering some to Sakura when my thigh catches fire.

My eyes fly wide open and I hurriedly shove the teriyaki sticks into my startled teammates hands. "Hold these," I gasp, digging a hand into my pants pocket. "Ow, ow, shit, ow, fuck!" I rip my hand out and throw the slip of paper on the ground, watching as the bright red glow of the symbols written on it slowly fade from burning red back to ink black.

I pant, rubbing at my thigh, and hold a hand out to Sakura, ignoring the various bystanders staring at me. She carefully hands them back over to me, a worried look on her face.

"Are you alright?"

I shake my head, bending down to pick the slip of paper up. "Yeah, I'm fine. Just Hatake and his seal." I resist the urge to crumple the stupid thing in my hand, if only because it's a seal I've never seen before and I can already think of a few uses for it besides burning the everloving shit out of my future students.

We start backtracking around the festival, which looks to be settling down for the night, and polish off the teriyaki sticks. Heaving a satisfied sigh when the last one has been picked clean, I toss the sticks in a nearby garbage can set out for the festival. I squint down at Hatake's seal, marveling at it against my will.

"I wonder how he got them to all link up like he did," I murmur.

"A series of command and subcommand seals, I think."

I look over at Sakura, walking beside me with a thoughtful expression on her face, surprised. "What are those?" Whatever they are I've never read about them before, and Iruka definitely didn't cover them in the meager Fuinjutsu units taught at the Academy.

"Can I see that?" Sakura asks. I hand her the seal. "Ah, okay. See this here?"

I squint down at the symbol she's pointing at. "I've never seen that one before."

"It's only used in seals that need to link to other seals," she explains. "Command seals don't have any use other than activating other command seals lower on the hierarchy."

"The hierarchy?" I ask, my brow furrowing.

Sakura hums, considering her words. "There are nine command seals in all that can be linked together like the ones that Kakashi-sensei handed out. They follow a specific chain of command, or a hierarchy." She holds up the seal and points at the symbol, ignoring my grumbles of 'I know what a hierarchy is'. "This one is the third most commanding, which means that only two of the other eight seals can command it."

"I see," I say, which is kind of true? It makes sense, but... "Wait, so what do each of them do?"

"They don't do anything by themselves. You have to fit them into the seals that you want to link together."

"What do you do if you have more than eight seals you want to activate?" I ask, cocking my head. "Can you repeat them?"

She shakes her head. "If you want to activate more than eight you have two options. You can create another chain of seals and activate two master seals instead of one. That's the most common method, because it's the easiest. But sometimes the chain needs to include all of the seals for it to work- in that case you need to organize the seals in such a way that together they form one big subcommand seal that you can activate with your master seal."

"I see." It isn't true at all this time. You can bet I'm looking it up as soon as we get back to Konoha, though.

Sakura smiles. "This method is a lot harder to pull off since you have to fit all of your seals together perfectly, which can be almost impossible, but you could theoretically string together an infinite chain of seals keyed to one command seal this way."

"...Man," I finally say. "I knew you were good at seals, Sakura, but I didn't know you were this good." And just like that she changes. As if jerked awake from a pleasant dream the enthusiasm and comfort disappears, and she looks away, mumbling a soft thank you.

Damn it, Uzumaki, you got so caught up in your own ignorance that you missed Sakura's sudden boost in confidence!

The rest of the walk back is predictably silent, though not really uncomfortable? I don't know. Whatever the case, we meet up with the others and check into our hotel without more than a handful of words between us, and that's that. My only consolation when I go to sleep is that I'll have another chance to dig into Sakura's knowledge of seals tomorrow.

I manage to snag one of the two cots this time, too, and the look on Sasuke's face at having to take the floor after a night with Lee gives me the sweetest dreams imaginable.

* * *

"Wait, so how does that fit with the five elements seal?" I ask, setting Sakura off on another tangent.

We had set out from our hotel this morning closer to the afternoon than dawn for our search, a rare treat. Since the festival didn't get into full swing until later in the day we'd been allowed to sleep in. Of course that didn't stop Lee from barging into our room at god knows what hour and dragging Sasuke kicking and snarling out into the streets, but hey, he's not my partner. Sakura had no such intentions, so I'd been given the unique opportunity of sleeping in on a mission.

I'm not ashamed to say that when Sasuke met my eyes and wordlessly begged for my assistance on his way out, I rolled over and went back to sleep.

Kakashi woke us up a while later and we set out for our first real day of investigation. We decided to take a different route this time, officially because there might be a specific stall or something that the cultists were lingering around that we hadn't found yet. In reality, I just wanted to check out some different stalls.

So we started our meandering search for the target and his goons, and while watching a play reenacting some battle or another from the Third Great War, I brought up seals.

From that point on our very important search for our target had turned into a lecture straight out of Fuinjutsu 101, courtesy of Haruno Sakura. If I had any doubts in my mind yesterday that  
Sakura has a gift with seals, even a few, they'd been banished, hunted down, and executed for high treason in the last few hours. We talk about everything ranging from theoretical storage seal applications to the pros and cons of blood seals, and don't even get me started about the spiel on space/time constructs. Even the topics that I start myself end up spiralling far beyond my comprehension after a while.

As much as it pains me to admit it, I'm outclassed by my pink-haired teammate when it comes to Fuinjutsu. Completely and utterly.

But that's okay, because while I learn a lot and don't understand even more, the best part about the discussion is that Sakura relaxes. The demure, downward tilt of her eyes is forgotten in her attempts to explain concepts to me with eye contact and excited hand movements. The latent tenseness she carries in her muscles, like she's a rabbit just waiting for a predator to jump out at her, leaks away. She's so caught up in showing me the ropes that she forgets her reserve.

It's progress, and it tastes like the last mouthful of broth in the bowl.

The conversation peters off after I run out of things to go back and forth with her about, but the sense of ease sticks around. Our sudden common ground- y'know, aside from the whole demon memory thing- seems to have banished most of the awkwardness I had been lurching through the last couple months. We bounce from stall to stall, enjoying ourselves, though I make sure to keep a sharp eye out for anything blue.

"So I've just gotta knock those pins down and I win?" I ask, squeezing the ball the stall owner had given me. It's very light, filled with cotton instead of air. The pins must be pretty flimsy.

The owner, a lanky man with short brown hair and an easy smile, nods. "Knock one down and you can pick from the bottom shelf, two and you can pick from the top, and if you can knock down all three you can pick from my selection up here." He points to the stuffed animals hanging from the high wooden ceiling. Contrary to most festival games, instead of being bigger than the lower level prizes they look to be a better quality.

I hum, fondling the ball and considering the stuffed cat hanging by its neck.

"Alright, I'll give it a shot." Not like I'll find many other games in this place that allow shinobi. I dig into my pocket, procuring my beloved frog wallet and passing the bills to the owner. The little cloth amphibian remains pleasantly plump, a result of Sasuke covering my grocery fees for the month. I should probably thank him for that again after he gets back from his day with Lee that I totally hung him out to dry on.

I give them ball one more squeeze and throw, propelling it forward with a small burst of wind chakra. It wobbles dangerously, but I manage to sink it right in the middle of the little pyramid. Booya.

The ball bounces off, and the pins don't move an inch.

"What the-" I narrow my eyes at the stall owner and his easy grin/smirk. "Are those things weighted?"

"I don't know," he says innocently, pocketing my hard earned cash. "Maybe you should try again and see?"

"You can't do that!" I say, pointing an accusing finger at him. "You can't give me a crappy ball _and_ weight the pins. That's stupid."

"I can do whatever I want, shinobi," he says, smirking in full force.

Oh, so it's a shinobi thing. The guy ropes in unsuspecting ninja with his status as one of the only shinobi-friendly game stalls in the festival, and then he screws them with a double whammy of disadvantages.

"Give me another ball," I growl, slapping some more bills down. Sakura tugs at my sleeve.

"Naruto, it's fine, we can find another one-"

"Here you go," The vendor says, handing me another oversized cotton ball and snatching up my money. He hooks a thumb at another sign on the support beams of his stall, this one emblazoned with red letters; 'No jutsu allowed.' "Mind the sign," he reminds me. I grunt in acceptance.

I cock my arm back, send a wave of chakra gushing up my arm, and throw.

The ball bounces off the tip of the top pin to no effect, and then the wave of wind chakra following behind it knocks the pins clean off the table. The vendor stumbles back, buffeted by the wave, and a few of the bottom shelf prizes tumble to the floor. I cross my arms, grinning in triumph.

"The sign says no jutsu!" The vendor says, recovering quickly and jabbing his finger at the sign. My grin widens.

"That wasn't a jutsu." All in all, it's a good tactic for the average shinobi. Regular chakra dissipates almost as soon as it leaves the body, and most genin don't even know any elemental ninjutsu, let alone have the skills to manipulate the elements without the aid of hand seals.

Good thing I'm not an average shinobi.

A few minutes of, ahem, persuasion later and I turn away from the stall, stuffed cat in hand. Petty victory achieved, I hold the cat out to Sakura.

"For me?" She asks, a cute little blush dusting her cheeks.

"I got it for you," I say, grinning my most charming and not-awkward grin.

I'll admit that the mission falls very slightly to the wayside after that. We play some more games, watch a few performances, have a large sum of fun, and not much gets done. We don't find any cultists, that's for sure. But I guess it could count as teambuilding?

It's a stretch, but I can make it work.

We're strolling through the throngs of villagers, the festival in full swing now, on our way to a puppet show when a stand catches my eye, just outside the reaches of the festival. I snatch up Sakura's hand and drag her stumbling along behind me. The ramen stand is brightly lit by the sunlight streaming in from the entrance, and several comfy looking stools line the bar. There are only a couple other customers inside the place besides us, for obvious reasons, so I grab one of two open spots right in the middle and sit down.

"I'll take a large bowl of miso, and throw a pork on when that one's done," I tell the man lounging at the stall with a notepad in his hands. He nods and jots it down, turning expectantly to Sakura. I twist around see her standing behind the stool, looking bewildered. "Don't worry, it's on me."

She shakes her head, settling down on the stool next to me, and orders a small bowl of chicken ramen. A classic.

"Sorry I jerked you around like that," I say once I've calmed down, sheepish. "I haven't had ramen in a few weeks and was, uh, curious. About the stand."

"That's one way to put it," she says, smiling. I blink. A joke? From Sakura?

Before I can comment on the anomaly, a finger taps me softly on the shoulder. I turn around in my seat, and come face to face with an old man.

He looks to be in his late eighties, a least. Oily black hair falls down to his shoulders, knotted and unkempt. His skin is pale but almost free of wrinkles, somehow, and his bright green eyes shine with warmth. There are crows feet around his eyes and laugh lines around his mouth, but he isn't laughing right now. He looks sad.

"Oh, my poor child." He says, closing his eyes and making a swift motion with his hand around his neck.

I stare at him. "... Do I know you?"

"No, but I know of the poison in your soul." He says sadly.

Was that an insult?

"What poison?" I ask.

He regards me mournfully. "The poison of a mad god."  
_What._

"I'm sorry- which god do you mean?" Sakura asks hesitantly. The conversations among the handful of customers dies, and even the barman leans in.

The old man finally tears his unsettling eyes off of me and opens his mouth to answer Sakura, but freezes. All of sudden he stumbles back, making even more rapid motions about his throat, where I can see a small chain resting. His eyes remain locked on Sakura the entire time. The customers give up all pretense of not listening and turn to watch him. He breathes deep, closing his eyes, and only then does he answer.

"A god that goes by many names, and takes on many shapes," he says, voice shaking. "A swing of its tails can rend the souls from men, and a single glance of its terrible gaze can crush their minds to dust." It sounds like he's reciting a passage out of my Academy textbook.

"Are you talking about the Nibi?" I ask in disbelief. He makes yet another swift motion about his throat, then turns to leave, pulling the hood of his robe over his head.

"I can not heal that which can not be healed," he says, as if reciting a lesson from memory. "I'm sorry, child. There is hope yet for you, but she is beyond my help. Only He can save her now."

"Wait!" I shout, finally connecting the dots between his ravings and the robe enveloping his frame. It isn't as blue as I had thought it would be- it only has bright blue trimmings, flowing up the arms and across the back. Still, this is without a doubt one of our guys. He pauses, and I fish for something to say. "Why can't you help her? With the, uh, poison?"

"It is beyond me," he repeats. He turns just enough for me to see his face, but not enough for him to see Sakura's. "If you truly desire help, though, my brother is speaking at the northern gate. He may be able to guide you." And with that he disappears from the ramen stand in a swirl of dirty white cloth.

Sakura stares after him with wide, wide eyes.

* * *

"Hatake!"

Said jonin peers at me over the rim of his orange book, raising an eyebrow. "Yes, Naruto?"

I grit my teeth, resisting the urge to yell at him for reading his stupid book in the middle of a mission only because of how hypocritical it would be. Instead I just say, "We found a lead to the target. He's at the northern gate."

Hatake's eyebrow shoots up underneath his headband. "Really?"

I roll my eyes. "No, I'm screwing with you."

"Ah, good one," he says, turning back to his book.

"No, seriously, we need to go get him before he moves," I say, yanking on his flak jacket.

"Ma, ma, what's the rush?" He asks, pocketing his book.

"We don't know how long he's going to be at the north gate. We have to move!" I say in exasperation. He thankfully follows me up onto the rooftops without any fuss, and Sakura follows close wordlessly behind. She hasn't said a thing since that creepy old cultist freaked out over her.

Not even a minute has passed when Gai leaps up onto the rooftop level with us, followed closely by Neji. Gai smiles bright, shouting a question over the din of the festival and the win screaming past us.

"Have you found our target?"

"Yeah, he's at the north gate!" I shout back. He smiles even brighter.

"Most youthful! I'll fetch Lee and Sasuke!"

It takes a lot longer than I'd like, and by the time the north gate comes within sight I'm starting to worry that the guy has left. How long can you preach about cult stuff, really? A while, it turns out, as we touch down on a building near the gate and spot a crowd of people gathered. They're all congregated around a small group of hooded figures- the cultists. And in the middle of the cultists is a man wearing a robe with subtle blue trimming like the rest, and a towering priest's hat with elaborate blue designs and the kanji for 'Water' painted on its surface.

"This is not a matter of charity," The apparent priest is saying in a calm voice that nevertheless carries all the way to the rooftop. "I do not seek money or supplies, only willing ears." Catcalls rise out from the crowd. Judging from the way they respond to his plea, he's been at it for a while.

"That's him, right? The guy in the priest hat?" I ask Hatake. He hums.

"Looks like it. Let's wait for Gai and the others before we do anything, though."

"I could handle them all myself. They're civilians," Neji says, the scorn in his voice clear. It's pretty easy to see he's not happy following orders from a different jonin sensei.

"Just watch," Hatake insists, and Neji lapses into reluctant silence.

"Who cares about your demon god?" A man in the crowd shouts.

"Our Cure is _benevolent_," The priest calls. "His aim is to cleanse, with each of His three tails- body, mind, and soul."

"What the-" I turn to Hatake, baffled. "Are they worshipping _Bijuu_?"

"The Sanbi, to be specific," He affirms, his eye watching the Bijuu priest grimly.

_The Sanbi no Isonade is the Bijuu of Water, and as such is one of the most difficult Bijuu to track due to the sheer abundance of its element in the world. Of the nine, it is also one of the most vicious. It has been known to sweep entire civilizations away with tsunamis created by its three massive tails, and it has sunk countless ships. Fresh water and salt water hold no significance to the Sanbi. If there is a large enough source, it will appear..._

The textbook entry from the Academy appears in my mind, and I boggle at the priest. It isn't something you can misconstrue. The Sanbi has killed hundreds of thousands of people and he's _worshipping_ it.

"You're insane!" A woman cries out from the crowd. "Bijuu are monsters!"

"How can a natural disaster heal things?" Another man asks.

"The Bijuu are _sick_," The priest says. "They have been poisoned and driven mad and Our Cure is the one who will heal them." He holds up a hand, forestalling another round of outbursts.

"Our Cure's goal has always been to heal, and his element has always reflected this. Fire burns and wind cuts, but water soothes. The earth will let you break against it, unmoved, but the water will bend and ease your fall. The other elements of the world are harsh and unforgiving but for water, because Our Cure is the only one to escape the illness that has befallen His brethren!

"He can not do this alone, however. He is but one god among many. So he gifts his ability to heal unto those who are true to his cause, in the hopes that they might assist him in healing the elements of this world. I'll show you." With that said, a cultists shuffles forward and holds out a drinking flask to him. He uncaps it, take a deep drink, and then holds it out to one of the closer bystanders.

"Smell this, and tell me what it is."

The man regards the flask warily, but a few nudges from others in the crowd prompts him to grab it and take a cautious whiff. He jerks back as if struck, and holds the flask out at arms length.

"That's cyanide! You just drank cyanide you fucking lunatic!"

Shouts erupt from the crowd, people shoving at each other to get a look at the dead man walking. I hiss through my teeth. "So much for taking him alive." Hatake's eye narrows.

The priest gently takes the flask back, screwing the cap on and tucking it into his robe. Then he... stands there. Soon the jostling in the crowd settles, and the shouts dull to quiet murmurs. A few people drift in from the area outside the festival to see what the noise is all about, and are quickly enveloped into the fold and shown the crazy man who had just taken a swig of poison.

Poison which should have killed him by now.

"Hatake," I say quietly. "Isn't the kill window for cyanide ingestion a minute?" His silence is more than a good enough answer.

Down below, the crowd begins to realize the same thing. The shouts start back up, people jostling even more to get a look at the impossibility standing before them. A couple break off and run away, others start shouting about tricks and planted bystanders, but just wait to see what he does next. He raises a hand again, and again the crowd falls silent. This time though, in anticipation.

"I am no shinobi," he says, his voice free and clear of the pain and sluggishness that it should possess. "I know no medical jutsu, am the member of no ancient bloodline- what I am is a member of Our Cure's faith.

"It's this faith that protects me!" He continues, voice growing stronger. The crowd watches, enraptured, and I can't help but do the same. "It is this faith that I will fight for, this faith that I will use to heal the ills of the other Bijuu alongside Him. Because while the poison that has infected the eight Bijuu is a great and terrible thing, there is _no poison_ that He can not cure."

A gloved hand falls on my shoulder, and Hatake's voice drowns out the priest and his preachings. "I've seen enough," he says, his voice cold steel. "Move in."


	15. Chapter 15

"Do you see now, Lee? It's just as I said! They've already apprehended the target themselves!"

"Yes, Gai-sensei! I'm sorry for ever doubting you!"

I rub at my head, groaning as the twin bellowing voices drift to me through the thin hotel walls. Ignoring them, I grab the red-speckled bar of soap from the tray jutting out below the showerhead and set to scrubbing my body down for a second time.

The "extermination" as detailed in the mission scroll went well. Very well. Sakura and I took down the priest while Hatake and Neji handled the followers. The guy wasn't lying when he said he wasn't a shinobi- I beat him down by myself, and all Sakura had to do was tie him up. Neji swept through his half of the cultists in a blur, dispatching each of them with a tap to the forehead or a poke to the chest. And Hatake...

I scrub harder.

When it was all said and done, and the crowd of bystanders had fled in terror, Hatake gathered all the followers up in scrolls and threw the priest over his shoulder. Rather than wait on Gai to show back up with our other two teammates, he decided to head back to the hotel so we could start packing our supplies up for the trip back. If it had been any other time I would have needled him for a little time at the festival before we left, but as it was I just wanted to take a shower.

I shuffle out of the bathroom a while later in my orange pants, scrubbing my hair dry. Everyone else looks ready to go. I quickly throw the rest of my clothes on and sling my backpack over my shoulders.

"Ready?" Hatake asks, glancing up from his conversation with Sakura. I nod.

Really, I'm not mad or scared or anything like that. This is what the old man told us to do, after all. And it's not like I haven't seen death before. This is actually the first mission I've been on that involved taking a prisoner alive.

It's just that I've never been slapped in the face with it before. Literally slapped in the face.

My stomach does a few flips, remembering the smell and the feel and the _taste_, and I pull out a rations bar. For all that they taste like the underside of a worn out sandal, they're easy on the stomach. I bite into it as we file out of the room, idly realizing that I never even got the chance to eat my ramen at that stand.

"A job well done, my precious students!" Gai congratulates us when we walk out of the southern gate.

Lee cheers and even Neji looks satisfied, but I can't help but wonder. When Sasuke goes back to that leaf of his and Sakura drifts away to start fiddling with a kunai and a slip of paper, I fall into step beside Hatake. He's still carrying the priest slung over his shoulder.

"Hey, Hatake," I say quietly.

"Hmm?"

"Why'd we get this mission?"

Hatake looks down at me, visible eye unreadable. "What do you mean?"

"I mean why did we get sent to take down a bunch of civilians? All of our other missions have involved other shinobi, or at least bandits. Why didn't the old man send a hunter team or something instead?" I don't actually know if hunter team is something you can be assigned to as a genin, but it seems like it would exist.

"Because like it or not, we're shinobi and sometimes we have to kill civilians. They can be just as dangerous as shinobi." He looks up through the treetops, and sighs. "And also because you can never be sure they're just civilians. Not when these cults are involved."

"Cults? As in more than one?" My mouth falls open. "There are more of those?"

Hatake nods grimly. "One for every Bijuu."

I exhale a shaky breath. A cult for every Bijuu. Wow. "Why have I never heard of them before?" That's probably something they should have covered in the Academy, right?

"They're not respected much, for obvious reasons. Mist is the only hidden village that's acknowledged one of them as an official religion, and that was only a couple decades ago. They keep to themselves most times because of the animosity they face, and Shodai knows we've been trying just as hard to ignore their existence."

He sighs. "Sometimes, though, they rise back up to prominence. Whether it's an illegal pilgrimage into a Daimyo's domain or a campaign near a hidden village to gather followers, they become too great a threat to ignore."

"Why hasn't anyone just... wiped them out?"

"Two reasons," Hatake says. "The first is that they're very good at hiding. They're easy enough to track down when they're doing something public like this one-" He shrugs the side of his shoulder the priest is slung over. "But when they're trying to lay low, you can never quite tell if you've managed to get them all or if there's another sect hiding away in a different cave somewhere.

"The second reason is that they're dangerous."

I make to object, but he raises a hand. "These ones were weak, yes, and I'd be willing to bet that the majority of these Bijuu cultists are little more than crazed civilians, but some of them are different."

I eye the prisoner hunched over his back, unconscious. "Like him."

"Like him," Hatake agrees.

"What's different about them?"

"I don't know," he admits. "What I just told you is most of what I know about them. All I can say is that some of them, mostly the head priests and similarly high-ranking members of their respective cults, have abilities that can't be explained without factoring jutsu or bloodlines into the equation. And since the vast majority of these cultists are civilians, and these abilities are shared between people with no familial ties to speak of..."

I narrow my eyes. "What kind of abilities?"

He chuckles. "Well, you've seen this one's. Why don't you take a guess as to the others?"

It doesn't take me long to see what he's getting at. "So they get powers that mirror their Bijuu?" That sounds... terrifying.

"Powers that match their perspective of their Bijuu," Hatake corrects. "It's just as likely that they discovered their abilities and decided that they must be gifts from their god."

"So what are the dangerous powers?" I ask. Because for all that being able to digest a fast-acting poison that has no known cure without breaking a sweat is incredible, it doesn't exactly pose a threat to an advancing shinobi.

"Well, there's the Yonbi's followers, who-" All of the sudden he pauses, head snapping sharply to the side. Up ahead Gai goes rigid, looking off in the same direction. I stop walking, glancing at Team 9, but they look just as confused as I feel. A little shiver runs down the back of my neck.

"Gai," Kakashi says, his voice low.

"Get behind me, Lee," Gai says, and the normally boisterous genin falls into line beside Neji, wide eyed. I move cautiously behind Hatake, gesturing for Sasuke and Sakura to do the same, and Hatake nods in approval. A tense silence falls over our group.

And then six shinobi garbed in black cloaks and porcelain masks appear from thin air in front of Gai and Hatake, all crouched but for one. He's wearing a grinning cat mask, and when he raises his hand to point at Hatake his cloak shifts, revealing full body armor underneath it.

ANBU. I'm looking at a squad of ANBU.

"You are in possession of a criminal wanted by the Hidden Village of Iwagakure," he drones. "By orders of the Sandaime Tsuchikage it is my duty to detain that man and his accomplices, by any means necessary."

Iwa ANBU. These are _Iwa ANBU_, and they're after our target.

"We too are on a mission to detain this man and his followers," Gai says, unperturbed. He brandishes our mission scroll and with a flick of his wrist unfurls it, holding it out for the ANBU to see. The official seal of the Hokage is clear as day.

"That man is guilty of illegally spreading the influence of a cult within the borders of the Land of Earth, causing riots and stealing civilians from their homes to join his following."

Gai steps forward. "He is also guilty of doing the same inside the Land of Grass, a staunch ally of the Land of Fire, as well as on her border itself. A border which, I will remind you, we are very close to right now." The message is clear. This isn't your mission anymore.

The ANBU doesn't respond. In fact, he doesn't move.

Gai suddenly stiffens, turning to look at us. His gaze flickers to Sasuke, who's been revealed to the squad by his step forward.

"Easy now," Hatake says, slowly raising his hand in a placating gesture. "I'm sure we can resolve this without any ruffled feathers."

"Hatake Kakashi," The ANBU murmurs. "Copy Cat nin of Konoha. Maito Gai, Konoha's Green Beast." A vague memory of the nukenin I'd fought on my first mission resurfaces in my mind. I hadn't even registered it at the time, but he'd called Hatake by that title too. I've never heard of any Green Beast of Konoha, though.

It'd be hilarious if anyone else had said it.

The ANBU pauses again, and Hatake tenses up. "And... an Uchiha."

"Naruto, go," Kakashi says, dropping our target on the ground with a dull thud. "Take Sakura and Sasuke and leave. Now."

"Wha-" I stagger back a step as one of the ANBU stands up from their crouch, drawing a tanto from behind their back.

"Go with them, you two," Gai orders, flicking a hand at Lee and falling into a taijutsu stance.

"Our objective has changed," Cat says, his own hand reaching for something at his waist. "Capture the Uchiha. Eliminate the rest." In one swift motion the four crouching ANBU all explode forward. Hatake's hand flashes towards his headband, Gai bellows something about a gate, and everything erupts into chaos.

"Alright, come on!" I grab the front of Sasuke's shirt start hauling him along down the path, before he can get any ideas. It stings worse than I can put into words to run away from a fight, especially one as dangerous as this, but for once in my life I have to acknowledge there's nothing I can do.

ANBU are the elite. Iruka and the old man and just about every adult shinobi I've ever met has made this very, very clear. They come in all shapes and sizes, sort themselves into all kinds of fancy subdivisions, but every single one of them is at least an accomplished chunin. Up and coming Academy students are taught to respect them, because they are the protectors of the village. That's how good they are.

There are only two ranks higher than ANBU. One of them is Hokage. The other belongs to Hatake and Gai. So if anyone can handle a full squad of ANBU by themselves, it's those two.

And on top of all this, I've been given an order by my jonin sensei. Even if I don't enjoy acknowledging him as such, that's what he is. And you don't go against your sensei's orders. Depending on the situation, it can be considered treason. And if there ever was a situation that warranted being locked up in prison for the rest of my life, it would be ignoring Hatake's orders and getting someone else killed trying to throw down with ANBU.

So really, it isn't my fault. I don't have a choice in the matter. I have to run.

… God _damn_ _it_.

I chance a glance behind me as we run, and watch as Hatake lobs an enormous ball of fire at one of the ANBU, who raises a wall of water to block it, which Gai bursts through with a spinning kick, only to have to pull out of his attack to block a sword strike from a different ANBU. All in the span of a couple 're moving so fast I can hardly keep track, and throwing around enough advanced ninjutsu to drive an Uchiha into a diabetic fit.

My gaze shifts away from the battle, and falls on Neji and Lee, rooted to the same spot they'd been in when the ANBU arrived.

I skid to a stop, and after a few paces Sakura and Sasuke do too.

"Change your mind, idiot?" Sasuke asks, but the edge of sarcasm is brittle. I shake my head, pointing. He curses.

"What the hell are you guys doing!?" I shout, even as a part of me urges to run back to them. "We need to go!"

And then, upon closer inspection, I realize that they're not rooted to the ground in fear. They're rooted to the ground by Neji who is holding Lee back from jumping into the fight.

I grit my teeth. "And they say we're the rookies."

I start sprinting down the path, gesturing for Sakura and Sasuke to go on without me, only to skid to a stop again when something appears in front of Lee and Neji. Something tall, with a sword and a porcelain tiger mask.

You've got to be kidding me.

Tiger moves forward, finally prompting the two veteran genin to break off their struggle and turn to face him. Neji darts forward in a wild attempt to put the foreign shinobi down before he has a chance to get going, but he simply brings his sword down, and when Neji pulls back he backhand him with his free hand. Lee charges in with a cry of outrage, and after a brief flurry of punches and kicks is put on the defensive by Tigers's blade.

I glance back at Sakura and Sasuke, hovering a few feet away. If I jump into the fray there's no way Sasuke will keep running, and he'll need all the space he can get if he wants to outrun that ANBU. It's not my fault Lee went against his sensei's orders. There's nothing I can do.

"Nothing I can do," I murmur, turning away.

Come on, Uzumaki.

"To _hell_ with that."

Lee staggers back, clutching a bleeding gash in his arm, and Neji appears in front of him. He jabs another finger at Tiger, but this time instead of drifting back when the ANBU swipes at him he spins under it, spinning and spinning until the Revolving Heaven explodes into being around him and throws Tiger back into a tree. A plume of smoke erupts around him, revealing a shattered slab of wood in his place.

For a second Neji looks confused. Then panic appears in his eyes and he spins around. Tiger's sword is already swinging down, too close to dodge, too fast to spin.

I hurtle from the spot I'd climbed to up in the trees and slam my clasped hands down on his head. I can't see through his mask, but something tell me he's unimpressed. Still, it disrupts his attack enough for Neji to dodge, and before the foreign shinobi can react the veins surrounding his eyes bulge even more and he falls into the Gentle Fist stance.

"You are within range of my divination," he says, and blurs forward.

I jump back as Neji is suddenly in front of the ANBU, effortlessly dodging around sword swipes and lashing out with his fingers. He jabs tenketsu after tenketsu, doubling the amount with each exclamation, until he hits sixty-four and the ANBU falls to the ground, dead or paralyzed.

Huh. That was a lot easier than I thought it would be.

The body turns to mud.

"Mud clone?" Neji nods, grimacing. "So where-" Oh shit. Sasuke!

I pivot, just in time to see Sasuke take a sword swipe across the face. Lee throws a spinning roundhouse at the real Tiger's head, but he catches it and slams him down to the ground with it. I sprint forward, leaping up into the air again and clasping my hands together, gathering twice as much chakra as before around them. Tiger sees me just as I'm coming down and raises his sword to block me and likely sever my hands from my wrists.

I channel as much chakra as I can and bring my hands down.

For a second I think his arm will hold, and I'll fall on his blade like the worst kind of moron, but after a frozen moment of struggle it buckles under the force of my strike on the blade. He slides back, half from the blow and half from the resulting release of the condensed wind chakra.

Tiger stares at me through those eerie holes in his mask. I fall into my taijutsu stance.

His first strike comes so fast I almost don't notice it, right for the side of my neck. I duck under it without an inch to spare, and juke around another swipe. I don't have time to even think of mounting an attack as blow after blow rains down upon me. It's all I can do to dodge the handful of swings I can predict and knock the others into less vital areas with my chakra.

An eternity later, or maybe just a few seconds, Neji slides in. Emboldened by his success against the Tiger mud clone, he goes on the offensive, parrying the ANBU's blade and pushing viciously for a tenketsu strike on his sword-handling arm. I stumble away, bleeding from more than a couple cuts. Lee blows past me, back into the thick of it, and I kneel down next to Sasuke.

"You alright?" I ask, a lot more shaky than I'd like to admit. He has both of his hands covering his face, and for a horrible second I'm afraid the sword has blinded him. He nods, though, and I breathe a sigh of relief. He holds a hand out, revealing a long cut spanning from underneath his left eye to the right side of his forehead. It's pretty shallow, actually. A lot more shallow than my cuts.

"What the hell is going on here?" I hiss, more to myself than him as I hoist him up. "Why are they suddenly gunning for you? This is an act of _war_ for god sake."

"Not if we aren't alive to report it," Sasuke grunts, wiping the blood in his eyes off on the arm of his shirt.

"Good point. So what are we doing here?"

Sasuke scowls in thought, watching as Lee and Neji struggle to fend off Tiger. I take a quick glance behind us, at the big fight, and gape. What had once been a thin dirt path surrounded on both sides by forestry had turned into a massive clearing, dozens of trees ripped from their roots, burned down, or straight exploded.

And it looks like things are only going to get even more destructive, as there are still four ANBU locked in fierce combat with our two sensei. Thankfully, they don't look like they've taken any severe injuries. If anything, Gai looks even faster than he was at the beginning of the fight, if that were even possible, and is his skin red? I squint, not quite able to make it out through the haze of A-rank ninjutsu and elite shinobi.

"Naruto!" Sasuke jerks me to the side, and not a moment too soon as Lee suddenly goes rocketing through the spot I'd just been in, crashing into a tree.

"Heh, thanks," I say, just a bit wild-eyed. "So I think Hatake and Gai can handle themselves. We won't have to worry about cleaning up the rest of the squad, at least." Sasuke snorts. "But really, what are we doing?"

All by himself, Neji is quickly being overwhelmed by Tiger's superior kenjutsu abilities. When it finally proves too much for him, he executes another Revolving Heaven. This time though, Tiger is prepared. He jumps back, hanging just outside the range of the jutsu, poised to strike when Neji lets it go.

A trio of kunai sink into the ground at his feet, each wrapped in seals. Tiger flashes through hand seals, tanto now sheathed, but when he reaches the last one he pauses and looks up into the treeline where the kunai came from. I stare at him in confusion, wondering what the hell he's doing standing there about to get blown up. Then it hits me. The seals haven't started sizzling yet.

Sakura used defective notes. _Shit_.

Tiger breaks the hand seal, unsheathing his blade once more, and makes to leap up into the treeline. I growl, plotting out the trajectory I'll need to take to catch him before he makes it to Sakura. I start running.

Then the tags explode.

I'm still a good twenty feet away from the fight when they go off. The average blast radius of genin-grade explosive notes is ten feet- fifteen at best. And there's always a minimum five seconds of "sizzle" before they blow. These haven't even begun to sizzle when they activate, and all of the sudden my world is bathed in searing white.

I lurch, trip, and fall to my knees. I clutch at my eyes, a gurgling cross between a scream and a groan rising in my throat. A high shriek echoes in my ears, but I can't risk the agony of taking my hands off my eyes to cover them as well. A pair of hands fall on my shoulders, shaking me back and forth, and a faint noise makes itself heard through the ringing.

"Naruto! Naruto!"

"What?" I hiss.

"What happened? Can you see?"

Rather than say no and leave it at that as my gut is hollering at me to do, I force my eyelids open. Everything remains a blinding white, and an asinine thought passes through my mind that this must be what being a Hyuuga feels like. Then my vision and my head begin to clear and I blink rapidly.

Sasuke's bleeding visage comes into being in front of me, and I nod. He sighs in relief.

"Well," I say, voice hoarse from all the internal screaming I just did. "That role reversal didn't take long."

"What happened?" He asks. "I looked over at the fight with the jonin and heard a bang, and then you were on the ground."

"Sakura used a bunch of flash tags," I say, doing my best to massage the ringing out of my ears.

Sasuke blinks. "Where did she get flash tags?"

"Beats the hell out of me," I say, staggering to my feet. Flash tags are supposed to be chunin and up. You can't buy them in the store or anything like that- you've gotta get them from the village armory. It should be impossible for her to have them.

Ah, who am I kidding? She probably made them herself. Wouldn't surprise me.

Now that my eyes have cleared up for the most part, I look to see what kind of effect the tags had on Tiger and Neji. Neji is down on the ground, clutching his eyes. Looks like his Revolving Heaven fell apart right before the flash tags went off. Ouch. And Tiger...

Tiger is right where he was before the tags went off, unperturbed. Well, no, he isn't jumping up after Sakura. So maybe there's something going on behind his mask? But no. He just turns around and starts advancing on Neji's downed form, apparently having decided that Sakura isn't a threat.

"Are you kidding me? Are you fucking kidding me!?" I shout, pulling at my hair. Sasuke doesn't say a word, just flies through a set of hand seals and brings his fingers up to his mouth.

"_Fire Release: Great Fireball Jutsu_!" Tiger dodges the jutsu with plenty of room to spare, but it puts some distance between him and Neji, at least. Unfortunately, it closes the distance between him and us.

"Alright, screw plans. Who cares about plans? We don't need plans." I mutter, gearing up for another painful onslaught.

"LEE!"'

Against my better judgement I turn. I see Gai, hands locked together with another ANBU's, and yes his skin is definitely red. He shoves against the other shinobi and the ground beneath them cracks. The ANBU is thrown back through the air, and he turns back to Lee.

"Lee, the gates! Use the gates!" Another ANBU falls upon him with a blade of stone as tall as I am, and he's forced back into the fight.

"Gai-sensei!" Lee cries, pulling himself out of the ruins of the tree he'd been thrown into. I glance at him, then to Tiger, who Sasuke has already engaged, and then back again.

Alright Gai, I'll give it a shot. You better not let me down.

"New plan!" I holler, leaping into the fray. "Protect Lee!"

The onslaught is indeed very painful. The Tiger-masked ANBU is unbelievably fast with his tanto, and it's all I can do to keep him from advancing on Lee and/or cutting my throat open. It only takes a minute for cuts to start appearing all over my arms and legs. And yet I find myself grinning, because despite the beatdown I'm taking, there's one difference between this engagement and the last one.

This time I'm fighting with Sasuke.

Tiger bats aside one of my kicks with the flat edge of his sword, but before he can follow up Sasuke is already sliding under my aborted kick and kicking at his legs. He sidesteps, his sword sweeping down at Sasuke's vulnerable spot on the ground, but I've already covered the distance between us with a surge of wind chakra. For every attack Tiger avoids from one of us, there's another one already coming at him. For every attack he launches at one of us, the other is there to back him up.

I've been told more than once that teamwork in a close combat scenario is almost impossible to pull off. The risk of stumbling over one another at a critical moment is too high, the chance of knowing exactly what your partner will do before they do it is too low. It takes years to build up that level of trust.

I don't like to call it trust. I like to call it experience. Experience from years and years of getting my ass handed to me by Sasuke and handing him his in return.

Whatever you want to call it, the result is the same. For a couple precious minutes, due to our synchronized fighting, the kid gloves Tiger is handling Sasuke with, and no small amount of luck, we're able to hold off the ANBU shinobi for Lee.

And then Tiger takes a swipe at me that I can't dodge, so I knock it to the side with a strong burst of wind. The strike careens off to the right, directly into the path of Sasuke's next assault.

I don't even have time to scream a warning. The blade flashes, heading straight for Sasuke's throat.

I register the clash of metal on metal before I do the sight of Neji, suddenly in the middle of our fight, a kunai clenched in his hands. He heaves Tiger's blade aside with his own, and Sasuke immediately tries to capitalize on the opening. He throws a punch aimed at the ANBU's solar plexus, but instead of batting it aside or dodging, he catches it in one gloved hand. Then with one monumental heave he spins Sasuke around and sends him flying into the trees.

Tiger turns back to us, and he speaks.

"_Pouncing Hunter's Dance_."

I don't even have time to curse. Tiger has already appeared in front of me, sword glowing with the energy from his kenjutsu technique. Even the wind I channel to take the brunt of the blow doesn't protect me from the backlash. I'm sent flying back, not as far as Sasuke, but I still find myself slamming into a tree. Stars dance across my eyes, and if not for the tree's support I'd fall flat on my face.

As it is I let the stars clear, and take stock of things.

I can't see Hatake and Gai's fight anymore. They've driven their opponents too far away- or been driven by them. Lee is still in the same spot, though he looks to be muttering something to himself now. Sasuke is nowhere to be found, and neither is Sakura. And Neji...

Neji is getting murdered.

Chakra courses through my veins, and I explode forward with a speed born of desperation.

Neji staggers as the elite shinobi dances around him, breaking through every single one of his defenses before he even has a time to put them up. He's been toying with us, I realize as he opens up three new cuts along his arm in the blink of an eye. He's been toying with us this entire time and we _still_-

Tiger rears back his blade, stabbing it down at Neji's throat.

Wind explodes from my palms, knocking the veteran genin aside, and liquid fire fills my veins.

Everything stops. The wind, the blade, my teammates, everything. It's just me, standing there. Breathe in, breathe out. Breathe in, breathe out. Neji stares up at me with wide eyes. Tiger shifts, tugging at the sword lodged in my flesh, and I grunt. I raise an arm, clenching the blade in my fist, ignoring the cuts that open up in my hand.

"Stop," I growl. He tugs again, and I hold firm. Then in one smooth motion he rips it out and _oh god it hurts_. I stagger, clutching at the gushing wound. Tiger flicks the blade, and my blood flies off like water. He raises his blade again, the energy from his technique flaring up once more.

"_Gate of Opening: Open!_"

The blade freezes.

"_Gate of Healing: Open!_"

Ignoring the nausea, I turn my head. Through my internal haze I see Lee standing up, leaves and dirt shaking and rising up around him.

"_Gate of Life: Open!_"

Tiger takes off at a dead sprint towards Lee, sword alight with the energy of his technique. He covers half the distance in a heartbeat, only to veer off as an explosion rocks the earth. Sakura.

"_Gate of Pain: **Open!**_"

Lee's skin begins to darken, becoming almost red. Just like Gai. His eyes are pure white, and a small cyclone of actual, visible chakra whirls around him.

Tiger bursts through the dust cloud.

"_**Gate of Limit: OPEN!**_" Tiger's chakra flares, and he disappears as his kenjutsu technique goes into effect. "_**This is it!**_"

A thunderous clang echos across the clearing, and Tiger is revealed. He's frozen in a strike, tanto bearing down on Lee's ankle. Lee is _somehow_ holding back the sword with one leg jutting up into the air in a high kick. He isn't even wobbling. Tiger jerks back, and the two of them disappear from sight, appearing on the other side of the clearing a moment later, this time with Tiger holding off a punch from Lee with his sword.

They dance across the clearing, trading blows faster than anything I've ever seen, and I begin to wonder why in the name of the Sage and all six of his paths Lee is still a genin. I'm staring in abject wonder as Lee somehow parries a sword swipe with his leg when Sakura lands next to me with a soft thump.

I tilt my head, giving her a wry smile. "Hey there."

"How's your..." She says, trailing off, her eyes flicking down to my stab wound. I shrug, wincing at the sudden movement. Smooth, Uzumaki.

"No big deal. I can handle it."

She bites her lip, but nods. "I set up the new seal Kakashi-sensei gave me, but... I don't think it's going to do anything with how fast they're moving. Sorry."

"It's fine," I say, waving her off. Lee slams a two-legged kick into Tiger's crossed arms, sending him skidding back. "We've done our part. Lee can take things from here."

"No, he can't."

I turn on Neji, incredulous. "I'm sorry, are we watching the same fight here?" As if to prove my point Lee and Tiger appear off on the side of the clearing Sasuke had been sent flying to, Lee delivering a rising kick from the ground that Tiger only just manages to block. "Look at that! He's got him on the ropes!"

Neji shakes his head. "Lee can not hold this technique for long. The main use for it is that it enables him to perform his most powerful attack, the Reverse Lotus. But as you can see, that shinobi is too quick for him to initiate it."

"Well, how long can he do this before he burns out?" I ask. Maybe if he can-

"His limit is three minutes."

Oh fuck me.

"Okay, so if he doesn't get off his Reverse whatever before three minutes are up we're dead. How long has it been already?" I'm not actually expecting an answer, but Neji gives me one anyway.

"One minute and twenty-three seconds."

"Okay, alright. We can do this. All we need to do is lure them in somehow. We can do this. We can..." I clench my eyes shut. How are we going to do this? None of us have anything that can stun Tiger long enough for Lee to do anything. Neji's Gentle Fist, Sakura's tags, and Sasuke's fire jutsu are all too slow, and I don't even have-

My eyes fly open.

"Sakura. Where did you set up that barrier?"

I explain my plan as quickly as I can. Sakura nods along, a determined glint in her eye, but Neji just frowns at me.

"You're asking me to entrust you with my life with this plan," he says. I stare at him in disbelief, and open my mouth to call him an idiot, when the last person I'd have ever expected does it for me.

"You idiot!" Sakura cries, slapping him over the head. He glares murder at her, which is actually really intimidating with his Byakugan activated, but she just glares right back at him. "He just took a stab wound that would have killed you not even five minutes ago! You owe him your life!"

He scowls and turns his head away. Precious seconds tick by, and then he mutters, "Fine."

I sigh in relief, sending silent thanks to the gods and my pink-haired teammate. "Alright, no time to lose. Let's do it."

Sakura takes off towards the end of the clearing closest to Hatake and Gai's fight, which I still can't see from here. I follow after her as best as I can, and skid to a painful stop when she points down at the ground near a felled tree. I have to admit, she did a fantastic job concealing it. The focal points are barely visible, and would be next to impossible to see moving at the speeds Lee and Tiger are.

"Stand here," she says, and I move to comply. I give her a thumbs up, but she hesitates before taking off to complete her part. She reaches out and squeezes my hand tightly. "Good luck." Then she disappears up into the trees.

I smile softly, before sighing and pulling at the prickling ball of chakra in my stomach. It's starting to burn, just like on my first mission, but I've got no time for chakra exhaustion now. I close my eyes, take a steadying breath, and begin the loop.

In the middle of the clearing, Lee and Tiger are locked in a stalemate once more. But this time, before they can break apart Neji appears a few feet from them set in his Gentle Fist stance. Even from here he looks ragged, several cuts adorning his body, his clothes ripped to tatters. But his eyes are resolute, and his stance is firm.

"Once again," he says, his voice echoing with finality. "You are within range of my divination."

Tiger tears away from Lee, but before he can use his kenjutsu technique again, Neji is in his face. He's moving with the same enhanced speed as he did against that mud clone, driving the ANBU operative away from Lee. Lee clenches his fists, bracing for another attack, until Sakura comes hurtling in from the trees, skidding to a stop in front of him.

"Lee, wait!" Lee looks at her, confused, but complies. She gets in as close as she can with the cyclone of chakra whirling around the veteran genin, and relays the plan to him. He straightens up, looking over at me, and nods. Then he disappears amidst the trees still standing.

He'll stay away from the fight until it's time. I don't know if standing still will allow him to hold that form of his for any longer, but it's worth a shot.

I begin to spin the loop faster, and the tickle disappears as it condenses enough not to touch the wall of my throat. I relax just a bit, and breathe in slowly through my nose. I'm treated to the strange sensation of feeling the breath go down my throat through the swirling chakra construct, but aside from that there's no disruption. Good. I spin it even faster.

Out on the field, Neji is steadily herding Tiger my way, with the help of some liberal use of throwing weapons and explosive notes on Sakura's part. I feel a surge of hope as the Iwa shinobi continues to move towards me. It looks like they've taken the bait, then- the bait being that this is our final assault, and not just Neji and Sakura nudging him towards it.

"Thirty-two palms!" Neji calls, driving Tiger back even further and jabbing at least a dozen strikes into his sword, getting faster and faster with every one. "Sixty-four palms!" His arms are a blur as he rains blows down on the foreign ANBU. It's all the masked man can do to keep blocking them.

Then Neji staggers and falls to one knee, spent. My stomach drops.

That was his whole technique, and Tiger is still at least a dozen feet outside the barrier's range.

I shouldn't have sent Lee away. What was I thinking? That a few extra seconds of his gates were worth more than his ability to put Tiger on the backfoot? Stupid, stupid, stupid.

Tiger straightens up from his crouched, defensive stance. His chakra flares again.

And then a ball of fire comes hurtling down from the treetops behind me at him, and he's forced to break it as he dodges to the side. Sasuke lands in front of Neji in a crouch, a fierce scowl on his face. He stands up and makes to pursue the man, but pauses as Neji's lips move rapidly, relaying the plan to him I hope.

Sasuke nods and turns back to Tiger, who's currently dancing around a flurry of shuriken courtesy of Sakura, and leaps at him with a kunai clenched in both hands. The difference between Sasuke's assault and Neji's is immediately apparent, as Sasuke is moving far slower than Neji's insanely fast Sixty-Four Palm technique.

He makes up for it, though, by working in tandem with Sakura. Because even though they haven't been teammates nearly as long as he and I have been fighting together, they've still learned a thing or two from each other. And it shows. Though Sasuke is taking far more hits than Neji did, he's still leading him back to me, pulling him rather than pushing him.

I smile, breathing a sigh of relief through my nose. The plan isn't ruined. We can still do this.

The loop of chakra shifts, skimming my throat.

I jerk forward, choking on blood as my throat is torn open from the inside. I bite down as hard as I can, screaming through my teeth. A spray of blood erupts through the cracks, and I hunch over, bearing desperately down on the loop. It becomes smaller, withdrawing from the flesh of my throat, spinning faster. I pant through clenched teeth, as my nose is now clogged with blood.

The loop begins to wobble, and my breath freezes in my mangled throat. The loop calms.

I slowly straighten up, holding my breath, and survey the battlefield.

Sasuke is almost within range of the barrier, which is good. What is not good is that he's taking a monstrous beating. Whatever was holding back Tiger at the start of the fight is gone now, and after a few seconds I realize that Sasuke isn't getting help from Sakura anymore either. She must have run out of weapons. Not good.

Tiger drives Sasuke back another step, slashing at his chest. Sasuke bats it aside, but takes the following punch to the face full on. He hastily pulls another kunai out of his pouch, blocking the strike from the sword aimed at his throat. He skids backwards within a couple feet of the barrier. So close. Tiger knocks the kunai out of his hand and lunges at his throat.

Sasuke reaches out, and catches his wrist.

What.

Sasuke stares up at Tiger with wide eyes. Wide, crimson eyes. "I can see you," he says in wonder. The foreign shinobi tears his arm out of his grip and kicks at his head, but he ducks under it, and drifts away when he tries to stab him. "I can _see_ you," he repeats.

The loop spins faster and faster in my throat. My lungs moan in pain, begging for a breath of air, but I just focus on the loop. I've never gone this fast before, but I know it isn't enough. Not even close.

_You're compressing your chakra into an extremely small area, so if you want it to have any sort of impact when you release it you're going to have to spin it just as extremely fast._

Fed up with Sasuke's dodging, Tiger hops back and holds his sword out. "_Piercing Hunter's Dance._" But before he can initiate his new technique, Sasuke is suddenly inside hs guard. He ducks a punch, maneuvering around him until his back is facing me, and then stabs at him with another kunai.

He jumps back, avoiding it, and lands just inside the barrier.

"Naruto!" Sakura cries out, appearing behind me and slamming her hands into the ground. A pyramid of crimson red energy erupts from the ground, snapping into place around me and the ANBU. His mask swivels left and right, then settles on me. He lunges forward.

I slap my hands together, and the loop shots up towards my mouth.

_Wind Release: Great Breakthrough!_

The wind **_roars._**

The jutsu fills the barrier in an instant, slamming Tiger back into the vibrant red walls. I skid back, digging furrows in the dirt with my sandals. The loop hovers just behind my lips, unleashing more and more wind until the barrier cracks, splinters, and gives way.

Tiger rockets up into the air, the Great Breakthrough propelling him higher and higher, until a green blur appears above him. Lee hangs poised in midair for one frozen moment, and then drops down on the Iwa nin. The loops of chakra in my throat finally dissipates, and I slump, coughing up blood.

"_**Reverse Lotus!**_"

I look up in awe as Lee's attack unfolds, his form becoming little more than a blur as he bounces around from tree to tree, landing one devastating attack after another so fast that the Iwa shinobi looks like he's hanging in midair.

Lee appears above him, crouched in the high branches of a tree, and kicks off. Tiger somehow musters the strength to cross his arms in a block, but it does nothing to stop the simultaneous kick and open-handed strike that Lee hits him with. He hits the ground with a thunderous boom, throwing up dust. Lee lands a few feet away from me, wobbling on his feet, and the vortex of chakra surrounding him fades, along with the red in his skin and the white in his eyes.

"You're scary, Lee," I say, the words raspy and near unintelligible due to my throat. Lee seems to get my meaning, as he throws me a tired smile and a shaky thumbs up.

The dust cloud begins to settle, and I start plodding forward. Sasuke falls into step beside me, eyeing me in concern, the twin tomoe in each of his Sharingan spinning slowly. I give him a thumbs up of my own.

The dust settles, and Sasuke breathes in sharply.

Tiger stands in the middle of a crater, earth sloughing off of his body in sheets. His sword rests in his left hand, his right having been bent at an odd angle. An earth jutsu, I realize. He used an earth jutsu to protect himself. That's what he was doing when he crossed his arms.

I stare at him, and somehow I get the feeling he stares back at me. Then, without another word, he turns tail and runs.

I snarl, hot, seething rage erupting inside me. He expects to just run away, after all this? Like hell!

I draw a kunai. My stomach is positively on fire at this point, but I couldn't care less. I tear at the core of my chakra, bringing more and more to bear until it feels like I'll burst. Then I surge forward.

Neji cries out somewhere behind me, but I've only got eyes for the Iwa ANBU's retreating form. I catch him at the edge of the clearing. He spins around, hacking at my neck, but I duck under it. His leg shoots up, kicking at my side, but I spin around it. He's sloppy now. He's using his sword with his off hand, defending his injured one, and earth jutsu or not, Lee's Reverse Lotus has rattled him.

He swings wildly, and I stab him in the wrist. His hand spasms open, and I snatch the tanto out of the air.

I spin once, and bury it in his heart.

I almost can't believe it when he drops to the ground, dead. I'm almost afraid he'll reveal yet another secret ability that allows him to survive a punctured heart, but seconds pass and he remain still. I stand over him, panting, blood dripping from my mouth.

I take hold of the tanto's handle, jutting up into the air, and pull it out. I flick it, cleaning it of the Iwa shinobi's blood.

I'm halfway through unstrapping the sheathe from his back when a shadow falls over me. With one final jerk I pull it free and stand up, meeting Hatake's gaze. Aside from the blood coating his left arm, he doesn't look too bad. His headband has been pushed up, though, revealing a familiar crimson red eye. Huh.

"Naruto," he says quietly. I glance past him, Sakura and Sasuke hovering just behind, watching me.

I smile, flashing bloody teeth up at him. "Hey."

He places a gentle hand on my shoulder, the clean one, and tilts his head back towards where he'd had his fight with Gai and the rest of the ANBU. "Come on," he says. "Let's go home. You did good."


End file.
